


The Swan and the Nightingale

by RebelByrdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2018-04-15 04:43:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 118,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4593264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelByrdie/pseuds/RebelByrdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Post Queen of Hearts rewrite. A mysterious woman from Regina's past, political intrigue, scheming enemies, new friends and the promise of true love bring an entirely new dynamic to Storybrooke. With Cora and Hook on the loose, a band of royals struggling for power and an Ex-Evil Queen in the mix, will Emma be able to save the day this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Prologue

Tiny bare feet beat a rapid and familiar path on the cold flagstone floor and through the always open door. A moment later the nightdress clad four year old launched herself at the still half-asleep woman in the bed. "Nan! Nan! Nan!" The girl tugged on the woman's uncovered arm. "Up! Time to be up!"

The woman didn't respond and the girl's small face fell into a pout, "Na-an!" Then, as quick as a snake, the woman twisted to the side and wrapped her arms around the girl in a tight bear hug, "Good morning, My Nightingale."

"I had a dweam again."

Green eyes flashed and the woman pulled the girl closer with slender arms that were several shades too dark to have given birth to the precious baby they were around, "A bad one?" She felt the little girl shake her head, and breathed a small sigh of relief. There were so many nightmares that a good dream was a great gift. She pushed the bedcovers off of her and twisted around to get out of bed. She stood and smoothed her own night dress out before reaching down to pick her girl up. The nanny settled the four year old on her hip and they walked back into the nursery together. "Tell me about you dream."

"A pwincess."

"Princess." She corrected the girl absent-mindedly while she selected the girl's dress for the day. She knew that the child would eventually master her r's, but her mother expected the girl to speak properly now. "Was that princess you?"

The girl had the nightdress half-way off and tangled in her arms above her head. "No." The Nanny pulled the large shirt the rest of the way off the girl, "So another princess, then?"

"She was encha-enchan-magiced. She's a swan during the day and a princess at night."

The nanny helped the girl into her petticoat, and tried not to chuckle at the baby's struggle with the long word. "A swan and a princess. It sounds like a very strange curse." "She's sad and so is her queen." "You mean her king?" Sometimes the girl got titles confused, it was something they were working on.

"No. It was a lady, a sad queen. Everyone thinks she's bad, like mamma, but she's nice like you."

Her heart melted a little bit at the girl's innocent words. She could not explain to anyone how much she loved her Little Nightingale. The little girl held her chubby little arms up for her dress, "She looks mean and people are scared of her. I think she's cursed and needs the princess to save her."

"I see." She really did not see, but felt that this was important. This dream seemed far more vivid than normal. She helped the girl into her light blue frock. "How does the Swan Princess save the Queen if she is also cursed?"

The little girl shrugged, "They have to save each other, but they don't know how." The Nanny tied the sash behind the girl's back. "There is only one way to break such dark curses, my Little One."

The girl turned to her, dark eyes full of hope, "What is it?" The nanny smoothed dark hair, "True love's kiss, Regina. No magic is more powerful than love." Their conversation was interrupted by three staccato knocks on the door. Marie, the maid, brought in a tray, "Breakfast, your highness."

Regina, always easy to distract, brightened, "HI MARIE! Did you bring pancakes?"

The Nanny walked back into her own small chamber to dress for the day and tried to shake off the foreboding she felt. Regina was pacified by pancakes for now, but the story would come back. She knew it in her bones, this was not only a dream. When Prince Henry came to see his daughter, as he did every day, Regina told him the tale as well. The Prince doted on his child and praised her imagination. "You should paint a picture of it, Regina. Maybe one day we can make it into your very own story book." The paintings, colorful but crude, were drying by the fire an hour later. She looked over Regina's work and could pick out a wobbly white shape on a wide blue oval that could be a swan on a lake. The next page was a black castle with a dark triangle with dark lines that represented hair. The dark triangle had to be the queen. The third page was of the lake again but instead of a smiling sun there was a crescent moon and dots of stars in a dark sky. There was a blobby red triangle with yellow hair-the cursed princess. The fourth page had both triangles on it and a yellow blob that Regina called a horse. She smiled at the pages, they were beautiful, just like Regina.

At precisely three candle marks before dinner the nursery door flew open. Regina, playing with her dolls by the fire, jerked and immediately stood. Though she smiled at the woman who strode through the door, her dark eyes were wide with fear. "Hello Mother."

Princess Cora looked at her small daughter imperiously, "Put down the doll, Regina." She turned on her heel. "It's time to put your childish things aside and come with me for your lessons."

Regina put her beloved doll on the nearby chair and immediately hurried to her mother's side. "Yes Mother."

Cora paused to glare at the Nanny. "Gypsy."

Esmeralda sank into a very shallow curtsy, "Your Highness."

She watched mother and daughter walk out and winced when Cora put her hand on the back of Regina's slender neck and sank her nails into the tender skin there. "Stand up straight, Regina. Queens do not slouch."

Whatever else she said was lost as the pair turned the corner of the corridor. Esmeralda was left in the empty nursery with a sour stomach and bitter anger burning in her stomach. She wished, not for the first time, that she was Regina's mother and not just her nursemaid. Her eyes fell to the paintings and she collected them with shaky hands. She did not know why, but she knew without a doubt that Cora could never see these drawings or know about Regina's dream. The wicked woman would find some way to twist the tale to her own means. She would use the story, the one that Regina was so sure was true, to hurt the little girl and she would not let that happen. This unknown princess, this Swan, would save her Nightingale one day.


	2. Welcome to Storybrooke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics indicate flashbacks.

Chapter I

Welcome to Storybrooke

 

Regina Mills half walked, half limped down the tidy streets of Storybrooke. Nobody spoke to her, they barely even looked at her. She was a pariah, The Evil Queen. She was the one that had cursed everyone and stolen their memories and their happy endings. Let them stare, she thought bitterly. Let them come, let them attack, she would suffer their pathetic peasant slings and arrows. They could say whatever they wanted, because it was all true, even if it was irrelevant to her. She was the Evil Queen, what would she care if some farmer jumped in her face to make accusations. Even if someone had been brave enough to try, though, she wouldn't have noticed. The world was out of focus and lazily tilted to the side. Flashes of noxious green continually flooded then receded from her vision, like waves on a beach. The magic she'd absorbed, cast with killer intent and powered by pilfered fairy dust, was slowly but surely killing her. She had endured pain over the years, plenty of it. Physical and magically delivered blows had rained down on her since she had been a child. All of that, yet nothing compared to the agony she was in now. Every step she took was a new torture. Her empty stomach pitched violently and she gagged on the taste blood and bile on her tongue. Every time the green flashed in her vision the pain intensified, and she wasn't sure how much further she could go.

Her home, a few blocks away, seemed just as unreachable as the moon. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. She would not give the people what they wanted to see. She would not break down, not here and not now. She would make it home and there, surrounded by the life she had thought was her happy ending, she would die. Her skin was on fire, every nerve was coated in acid and electrified. Everything, every single part of her body, hurt. Her fingers and palms, how she had absorbed most of the spell, throbbed and crackled with pain that paralyzed her hands. Her bones had been hollowed out, marrow replaced with white hot molten steel. Her arteries and veins were filled with lye. The worst of it, though, was her heart. Her weak, loving, heart that had betrayed her time and time again. Her heart was an Old War mace, covered in razor sharp spikes. It pierced her lungs and heart in a thousand places and dug deeper into her chest with every beat of her rapidly weakening heart. Her heartbeat was out of rhythm and painfully erratic. Her entire body shuddered uncontrollably every time it squeezed. Her chest was unbearably tight and she could barely breathe. It felt like she was tightly squeezed into an iron maiden corset.

How ironic it was, Regina could barely form the thought amidst the chaos of pain, that the Evil Queen had traded her life for those of the Savior and her thrice damned mother and no one would know or even care. She had wandered off the sidewalk and into the street. The only way she knew this was because she had twisted her ankle when she had suddenly come to the edge of the sidewalk and stepped into the gutter. Maybe a car would hit her. It would solve everyone's problems, Regina felt a twisted grin cross her face at the idea. Storybrooke would be rid of its Evil Queen and she would be out of the hideous pain she was in. She had held it in, masked her pain at first. Of course it hadn't been so severe then. She had been almost fine at the well, strong enough to welcome Ms. Swan back and accept her thanks. Then there had been the sickingly sweet scene at Gold's pawnshop. The magic's poisonous bite had made itself known there. Then again, she always got a little nauseous when Snow and her farm hand prince found each other. By the time the happy family left for Granny's Diner she was having problems focusing. She had pushed past Gold, ignoring the imp no matter how caustic his words were, and held her head up high. By the time she had walked out his door, however, she had known that something was very wrong with her. She could see three blurry figures standing in the road ahead of her. They were foggy, indistinct and she did not recognize them. She knew every face in Storybrooke, so these were hallucinations. Her brain, feverish with pain, had conjured phantoms to continue her torture. They could do their worst, she couldn't imagine any pain worse than she was already in. The green rolled in again and she shuddered to a stop, unsure if she could make it another step

"What's wrong with her?"

One of the hallucinations on the far right swam into focus. It was a young woman in what had once been a beautiful gown. There was a crown on her head. She was yet another princess. Her face faded in and out of focus. Regina wasn't sure, but she looked like one of the many princesses she had been forced to interact with by her mother. How strange. "Leah?" The name rolled thickly off her tongue, slowed and slurred by the fact that the bones of her face felt like they were made of parchment stretched over broken glass.

"It does not matter. She is the Evil Queen."

Another of her hallucinations, this one dressed in armor, stepped in front of the princess and was pointing a sword at her. The woman's, Regina was sure it was a woman, face was covered by chainmail, but there was fire in her dark eyes. Maybe she was real. Maybe she would kill her. Maybe the Charming clan had hired her as an executioner. Regina wasn't sure if it was the weakness in her knees or in her heart that made her drop to the roadbed, but either way she could no longer stand. She had always promised she would meet her end on her feet, but what was one more broken promise? She tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough that burnt like a knife in her lungs. The sword above her shined in the sunlight and Regina forced herself to look up at its wielder. She might be on her knees, but she still had her pride. They would never take that from her.

"You will not hurt her."

The last figure stepped around the princess and the warrior closer to her. This one was dressed in a long purple cloak that masked her face. Green crashed into her vision again, but Regina did not need her eyes. She recognized that voice, the warm raspy words and musical accent, and immediately knew that she was either dying or hallucinating. That voice, and the woman it belonged to, was long dead and buried. She had seen this woman's heart crushed to dust only inches from her face. There was no coming back from that: no spells, no true love's kiss, only death. The green was not receding and the pain in her chest was so sharp that she doubled over, one hand on the ground and one on her chest. Cool hands touched her flame hot face and tilted it up, "Oh my Little Nightingale, what trouble have you gotten yourself into?" The pet name, not heard since her childhood, was the last thing Regina heard before the sparkling green in her eyes darkened to black.

***

_She had fought hoards of Huns in the service of an empire that shunned her. She had hunted viscous monsters who had once been men. She had seen curses cast and curses broken. She had seen monsters rise up from the grave to terrorize the living. She had watched a woman climb a beanstalk in search of a way home. She had traveled what many would consider both far and wide. She had just crossed from one realm to another via a portal. She had never, ever, experienced anything like pushing Aurora's heart back in her chest. She had not expected the rush of magic that had run up her fingers and into her own heart. She had seen Aurora's face in many lights with many expressions on it, but never like that. She had been so breathtakingly beautiful that her heart felt lighter than air. Her eyes, a richer blue then the sky or the sea, had met her own and Mulan had been lost. The way she had looked at her, Mulan could not describe it. Her emotions, usually so controlled, had run through her like a stampeding cavalry._

_She, momentarily, let herself want. She had not thought of Phillip or of protecting Aurora. In that moment, that instant of magic and wonder, she had wanted to lean forward and kiss the princess she had sworn an oath to protect. She had wanted Phillips's fiancé with every fiber of her being. Then it was over, as abruptly as it had begun._

_If there was a way to rescue Phillip's soul they had to peruse it. They would need the wraith's medallion, though. That item, they both knew, was not in their world. They had returned to Lake Nostos in hopes of finding something, a clue or indication of where they might go next. They had gotten a lot more than just a clue._

_"Is that a ship?"_

_Mulan nodded, at a momentary loss for words. She had seen ships before, she had sailed across the sea more than once. This ship was very different from the ones she had traveled upon before. It was floating through the middle of the forest, for one thing._

_"_ _I don't understand why you couldn't just poof it straight to the lake, Love."_

_Mulan grabbed Aurora and pulled her back, placing her safely behind a large oak tree._

_"The things you don't understand, Capitan, could fill an ocean."_

_Mulan didn't bother to shush Aurora's small gasp. She was not pleased to see Cora and Hook either. Her hand fell its familiar position on the hilt of her sheathed sword._

_"So you can levitate my ship the entire way from port to lake, but you can't just poof it. Honestly it sounds like you're doing it the hard way. It's magic, after all." They stopped, they were far too close for Mulan's taste, less than two yards away, but she dared not move. The foliage was thick here, and her armor was dark enough that they might blend in just enough. "And what do you know about magic?" Cora's words were delivered with an angry hiss. Hook held up his hands-hand and hook, Mulan mentally corrected, in surrender. "Not enough to fill a thimble. I was just trying to pass the journey back to the portal in a friendly manner. All my rum is in the cargo hold." She didn't have to turn around to know that Aurora's eyes had widened. The portal was still open? The portal that could take them to the Land of Storybrooke and the medallion they needed? She waited until Cora and Hook were further away before she turned. Aurora mouthed the word 'Portal' to her. Mulan nodded gravely, and silently replied 'hurry'. They travelled through the woods, and despite Aurora's dress getting snagged on errant stumps, tree branches and thistle bushes, they beat Hook and Cora there. Mulan's eyes widened at the site. The portal was not the same as it had been. It was a whirling vortex or water. They could not jump into that, the only thing that would appear in Storybrooke would be their drowned corpses._

_"_ _You will need a ship to navigate that portal." Aurora jumped and let out an undignified squeak. Mulan pivoted and pulled her sword from its sheaf in one smooth motion. She held it up, ready to kill and die for her princess. "I mean you no harm." The woman, clad in a dark purple cloak, held up two empty hands. Though she could not see the woman's face, Mulan immediately recognized the style of cloak. The woman's dusky skin only confirmed her identification._

_"Gypsy."_

_The woman dropped her hands, "Warrior of the Emperor's Army."_

_"Who are you?" Aurora stepped around Mulan, her voice held a regal tone to it and Mulan almost smiled at the sound._

_"I am a traveler on a path that is very similar to yours."_

_Mulan put a protective hand on Aurora's shawl-covered shoulder, "No. Our paths are nothing alike."_

_The woman turned her head and when Mulan followed her eye line she could see the tall masts of the ship coming through the trees. "I am going to steal away on that ship when it sails through the portal. You may try to steal away without me, but you will be caught." There was no question in the woman's voice._

_"How do you know they won't catch you?" Mulan was impressed with Aurora, she was holding her own._

_"A Romani is only seen when they want to be seen. This is known."_

_Mulan had heard stories about gypsy magic, but trusted neither the gypsies nor magic._

_"Mulan."_

_She turned to Aurora. The woman's large blue eyes were full of unshed tears, "We must get through to the other world, for Phillip."_

_Damn her eyes. Damn her soft voice. Damn her beautiful princess face. Damn, Mulan thought caustically, her own traitorous heart. She pointed her sword at the Gypsy's heart, "Your word that you can get us on that ship unseen?" The woman nodded. "And you will not hurt the Princess?"_

_The woman paused, "I will hurt neither of you, Warrior, my word."_

_The ship was breaking through the trees and Cora and Hook would be there any minute. She knew only a few things about the Romani Gypsies, but one of them was that their word was unbreakable-magically unbreakable. "We will go with you."_

The journey from The Enchanted Forest to the Kingdom of Storybrooke had been stomach-churning and unsettling. The Gypsy had sneaked them onto the ship by making them invisible. She had waved her hand right in front of Hook's stubble-ridden face and he had seen nothing. His eyes hadn't tracked the movement and his pupils had not reacted to any change in the light hitting his eyes. They had been truly invisible. She had momentarily considered slaying both pirate and witch where they stood, but had not. Finding Phillip for Aurora was her journey and she would not stray from it. They had hidden themselves in a dark, cramped corner of the cargo hold and had to brace themselves. It had been like riding out a typhoon, wild and dangerous. Mulan had pressed Aurora into a corner and braced herself in front of the princess with all her might, unwilling to let the woman tumble around or be hit by the many lose boxes and ropes that were flying around the hold. She had repeatedly reminded herself, as her arms and legs burned from the strain of fighting to stay upright and steady, why she was doing what she was doing. The answers they needed, namely how to rescue Phillip's soul, rested with the Wraith's amulet and it was here in this Kingdom of Storybrooke. She was sworn to protect Aurora and for Aurora to be happy, she needed Phillip. She had started this journey with Phillip, to find Aurora, and had come full circle. It was her duty, her quest, her one purpose-to see Aurora and Phillip reunited, no matter how much that idea made her heart hurt.

There were dangers ahead. Finding Phillip's soul would not be easy. Living beings did not belong in the realm of souls. The Dark One was also here, as was Cora and the Evil Queen. Mulan would not feel safe until she found their old allies. They had not made the easiest of traveling companions, but they were honorable. She had found that though she was as unskilled warrior as she'd ever seen, Emma Swan had a sense of honor that was very close to her own. She liked the blonde woman's spirit. She would be pleased to fight by her side again, though hopefully not ogres. She even trusted Snow White, the queen separated from her love.

She did not, however, trust the gypsy. Helpful or not, Mulan could not bring herself to trust the robed woman. Her mistrust was obviously well founded as the woman knelt down beside the Evil Queen and spoke to her in the same way one would speak to a child. She was soft and gentle with the dark woman. She shifted her grip on her sword and put herself between Aurora and the other two women. The gypsy woman made no move towards Aurora, though. All of her attention was on the fallen queen. Mulan's raven brow rose when the woman bent down and picked the Queen up and cradled her like a child. The gypsy was strong, far stronger than her willowy form appeared to be. "This is where our paths separate." The woman turned on her bare heel and began to walk away from them, the queen's deadweight in her arms. The belt of gold coins that peeked out from beneath the cloak tinkled merrily as she moved away from them.

Aurora, too kind and curious for her own good, reached out to the other woman, "But how will you know where she lives? We don't even know where we are!"

The woman, she had never told them her name, smiled in the shadow of her cloak. "I will know." She started walking again, and left them alone. She had not said many words to them, and offered nothing more for goodbye. It was as quick and undramatic as their initial meeting, only in reverse. Mulan, for herself, felt much better without the woman. She knew, in the same way she knew the sun would rise in the morning and set in the evening that they would see the gypsy again.

For the moment, though, it was just her and Aurora again. That was how she preferred it. Their problem, however, still remained. How were they going to find Emma Swan and Snow White in this foreign land? She had never been anywhere like this Storybrooke. Emma and Snow had told them that it was different, but Mulan had a feeling that different was an understatement. She looked around at the landscape. There were buildings made of oddly-tinted wood, smooth stone and shining glass. The air smelled different, and she could taste both the nearby sea and the forest on the wind. It was loud, there were people talking and roars of far off beasts that she couldn't identify. Tall metal trees were planted in stone and everything was utterly different then anything she'd ever seen before. There were giant, hulking creatures of metal and glass all around and the few people, oddly clothed and armed with strange boxes small enough to fit in their palms, on the streets were staring at them. Mulan reached out and pulled Aurora closer to her, and the princess moved to her side without protest. Though she did not say it, Mulan knew that Aurora was afraid. They did not know who was friend and who was foe. She raised her sword, her faithful companion in war and peace times, into a defensive position and looked around, wary and ready to strike at anyone who made a move towards the princess. "I am Fa-Mulan and I am looking for Emma Swan and Snow White." No one answered her. They continued to stare. Mulan looked all around her, very little looked familiar. There was no visible castle or even banners to announce who the monarchs were. Had they even come to the right place? "Does anyone know of Emma Swan and Snow White?"

One man, dressed in an odd bulky clothe armor wiped his black-stained hands on a rag, "They're down at Granny's Diner." Mulan looked the man up and down. His hair was short and dark and the fancy script sewn into his clothe armor read 'Michael'.

"What's a diner?"

Mulan blew out an annoyed breathe at Aurora's question, but she could not find fault in it. She did not know what the odd word meant either. She had learned the common tongue of the Enchanted Forest when she was an adult and still struggled with some words. She pieced it together the best she could and could hazard a guess. "A tavern."

The man tossed the clothe over his shoulder, "More or less." He sighed, "It's going to be a whole lot easier to show you where it is, then tell you."

Aurora nodded, and Mulan spoke for the both of them, "Lead on."


	3. Home Sweet Home

Chapter III

Home Sweet Home

Emma Swan, a former convict turned sheriff and fairy tale savior was in love. Deep, heartfelt, all-encompassing love. She was finally ready to commit to a lifetime relationship. She had never thought she could truly commit, but then she'd been trapped in the Enchanted Forest. The separation had been acute and painful. She hadn't realized how deeply in love she'd been in until they'd been separated. She ran her fingers across the cool marble surface under her fingers. It was an oddly reverent movement, almost like worship.

"God I love you."

She had never been so happy to use a toilet in her life. She knew that her family and friends were waiting outside, but she wasn't sure she was ready to leave it yet. It was a real porcelain with water inside it, honest to God toilet. She had almost cried when she walked into the ladies' room at Granny's. It was sitting there, beautiful and white with a whole roll of toilet paper. The little things in life truly made a difference. Her adventure, as Henry called it, in the other world had been rough. She hadn't really considered how different the two worlds were until it was unmistakable. She was a city girl, a hardened survivor of the concrete jungle. She had conned her way half way across the country. She had survived being a ward of the state. She had been a Southie bounty hunter, for Christ's sake. In the fairy-tale forest she had quickly realized that three days of Brownie Scouts didn't cut it. She had been like Babes in the Woods. They were back now, though, and she was never ever going back. She preferred modern conveniences like air conditioning, cars, and hot chocolate. She washed her hands, with real soap and warm water. Wonderful mechanically heated water that came out of a tap and had chlorine and fluoride and lead in it. She dried her hands on one of the rough brown paper towels and shot the damp and crumpled remains into the trashcan. She was never, ever, going anywhere where she couldn't get to a functional bathroom within five minutes.

More importantly, she paused at the bathroom door, she was never, ever, going anywhere where Henry was more than five minutes or a phone call away from her. She had missed The Kid so damn much it was mind-blowing. She, Emma Swan, loved and had missed her son. The best thing was that he had missed her too and loved her back. All she had wanted to do while she was gone was get back to him-to get back to her family. She had, for the first time in her life, had a home to come home to. She was going to sit beside her son and eat another grilled cheese sandwich and wonderfully greasy fries. She and Henry were going to split a very large banana split. She was going to joke and flirt with Ruby. She was going to wink at Granny, who always hated the way they flirted. She was going to watch her parents be disgustingly, over-the-top, cute and cuddly with each other. She was going to relax and enjoy the feeling of being at home.

She walked out of the bathroom and stopped mid-stride. Mulan and Aurora, two people who had been in the Enchanted Forest only an hour ago, were standing in the middle of the diner. Emma blinked, and hoped that she had fallen asleep on her beloved toilet. Aurora, clad in the same ragged dress, was hugging Henry. Mulan, still covered in armor and leather, stood stiffly in the middle of the room. Her almond shaped eyes darted to every face, looking for a threat.

Mary Margr-Snow, was happily introducing the two women. Emma couldn't quite process the scene. It seemed far away and out of focus, like she was looking through binoculars with Vaseline smeared over the lenses.

"How the hell did you two get here?" She blurted it out without thinking, but it was a valid question.

Mulan, hands resting on the hilt, or was it the pommel (she didn't quite have sword parts figured out yet) and scowled. "The same way Cora did, on Hook's ship."

Emma dropped onto the nearest stool, she had been happy for all of half a freaking hour. They'd had half a freaking hour of peace. Damn it.

"Oh."

What a freaking bummer.

"Did anyone else come with you?"

She was almost afraid to know. Cora and Hook were bad enough. Emma absent mindedly rubbed her chest. Her chest that Cora had shoved her hand into. They hadn't exactly made lots of friends during their journey through Fairy Tale Land. Well there had been ogres and a giant, chimeras, zombie peasants and every other horror movie creature that were going to hunt her in her nightmares for the rest of forever.

"Just a Gypsy woman."

***

Cora stared at Storybrooke, Maine as she had since their arrival. The town was spread out in front of them, and though she could not see her, she knew that her daughter was out there somewhere. She could see the small village from the deck of Hook's vessel and she wondered where Regina was. Cora breathed in, basking in the sunlight and promise of a new world. She would find her daughter. Her Regina was bigger than this town, these peons. They both were. She was going to remind the people exactly who they were. Their knees would crack and their hearts would crumble in her grasp. She would destroy Snow White, and especially Emma Swan. She would take pleasure from bringing down Eva's descendants. She and Regina would dance in the swirls of dust that their hearts would make. She would just have to remind her errant daughter that her place was at her side. It would not be hard. Regina had always been stubborn, but at the end of the day she was her father's daughter-weak and malleable.

"So this is the land my daughter created."

Hook was thoroughly unimpressed. He had sailed between worlds and explored places that were on no map. This Kingdom of Maine looked bland and lifeless. He leaned against the ship's main mast, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at his ankles.

"It looks boring."

"Looks can be deceiving, Capitan."

He looked down at his hook, "You do know that they will run to them and tell them of our arrival." His voice carried a hint of venom to it.

Cora chuckled, "Of course. A gypsy spell may have fooled me once, but I am too powerful to be fooled by the likes of her now."

Hook rubbed his flesh and blood hand across the black scruff beard on his chin, "Then why, exactly, couldn't I use them as chum or at least played with them a little? The China Woman would have put up a ferocious fight." He paused, "And I've never had a Gypsy either. A man has needs and hobbies.

A murderous glint passed through Cora's eyes and Hook felt any amorous feelings in him curl up and die.

"You leave that woman to me. You're only here for your crocodile, remember that."

Hook held up his hand and his hook in a quick sign of surrender, "Understood, love. I would hate to be on your bad side. I almost feel for the wench."

Cora's lips quirked into an ice cold smile, "No one crosses me and gets away with it, Killian. Esmeralda has been living on borrowed time for far too long."


	4. Nightingale

Chapter III

Nightingale

 

 

_"I'm not going down there!"_

_A tiny silk-clad foot stamped the floor. Princess Regina was almost four years old and was acting like the child that she was. Esmeralda wanted to take the girl onto her lap and tell her that it was okay. She wanted to smooth the girl's hair and tell her that she did not have to go. It broke her heart that she could not do that. Princess Cora had demanded her daughter's presence. It was not every night that the King graced their manor with a visit and he expected to see his granddaughter._

_"But my little one you have on a pretty dress, do you not want the King to see how pretty you are?"_

_"I am plain and ugwy." Esmeralda closed her eyes and sighed. These were Cora's words and Regina repeated them as if they were the truth._

_"You look like your father, my sweet and he is the most handsome man in the kingdom. This is known."_

_"All of the pwincesses in the story books have yellow hair and blue eyes. I'm no pwincess." Esmeralda settled on her knees beside the little girl who was scowling at the mirror._

_"Those stories were written by fools, Regina. You are beautiful, the most beautiful of them all."_

_The girl shook her head, "I'm brown."_

_The woman smiled at her, putting her face beside the still chubby three year old's face so she could see her in the mirror. "The nightingale is brown too, my little one, but it sings the sweetest song."_

_Tears that had been threatening to spill over, evaporated in Regina's dark eyes. "Like in my twee?"_

_"You will sing far sweeter than all of those story book princesses because you have a good heart." She kissed Regina's dark hair. "And no matter how beautiful and beloved you become, you will always be my little nightingale."_

_"Pwomise?" Esmeralda wanted to promise so many things to the girl. She wanted to promise that she would have the happy ending she deserved. She wanted to tell her that she would always be happy. She wanted to promise her that Cora would never lay a hand on her again. It broke her heart that she could promise none of these things. "Always and forever, Regina, no matter what."_

Esmeralda had traveled to Kingdoms that had no name. She had walked along the long wall of the Chin. She had traveled to lands that worshiped lions and lived in perpetual winter. She had walked across sands to a place where carpets could fly. She had stayed a fortnight on an island where no man was allowed to tread. She had never seen any place like this world. She had never imagined such a place. She had danced upon cobblestone streets lifetimes ago, but these roads were different, made of a black material that she'd never seen before. There were no horses, there were no carts, but large contraptions that she had no name for went by her. The houses were all neat and made of wood and stone. There were no huts with thatched roofs. There were no farm animals behind stick fences. She looked around the streets and growled in frustration. She was Romani, a master of travel, she could not be lost. She looked down at Regina, her face was ashen and her breathing strained. She had to get Regina somewhere safe before it was too late. "I need a sign, Little One." Her Little One was not so little anymore, "please." Then she smelled it: the faint, sweet scent of apples. Despite the desperate situation, she could not help but smile at the scent. She followed her nose, cradling her precious cargo against her to a large white manor-house with number 108 on its door. She was sure that Regina would have everything and more inside, but this was not where they needed to be. Regina needed to be beneath her tree.

Esmeralda walked around the side of the white manor, eyes locked on the green leaves she saw dancing in the breeze. She fought with the fence's gate and sighed with relief when it finally swung open. Grass, green and alive, felt familiar under her bare feet. She smiled and headed to the one thing that she had known would be here. Regina's apple tree. She lay her nightingale on the grass beneath the tree. Her own words, spoken so long ago, echoed in her head: _So long as she tends to this tree, then she is not lost._ Weak from carrying the woman and from her worry, she fell to her knees beside her. She pushed back the hood of her cloak to reveal her face. Ebony hair shot through with streaks of white tumbled down her shoulders and touched her Nightingale's still face. Slim dusky fingers brushed the hair away and caressed Regina's too-thin cheek. Esmeralda had not seen her since she had left two days before the girl's tenth name day. She had always been a pretty child, but now she was a beautiful woman. A green spark crackled just underneath Regina's too-pale skin and Esmeralda jerked her hand back. A beautiful woman who was well on her way to her final journey. Regina's magic was purple, like Cora's. This green was some other sort of magic, and it was hurting her. Esmeralda waved her hand over Regina's still face. Her skin immediately prickled into goose bumps and her stomach fell. Fairy dust, and allot of it, was rushing through Regina's body. It was attacking her heart. What had happened? Esmeralda had studied magic in many different places and had never seen so much fairy dust used in a spell. The magic was fairy but the intent was very dark, it was a killing curse. "Spirits preserve you, Regina."

Her hands trembled as she removed her cloak. She took her bag from her shoulders and threw it to the ground beside her. She struggled with the unfamiliar coat and silk shirt, she ripped buttons to bare Regina's chest. The skin above her heart was a poisonous green. "No-no-no." She shoved her hand into her bag and pulled out a small crystal. She put it in the center of Regina's forehead. It turned emerald green, then it exploded. Esmeralda twisted around, hand up to her eyes. Crystal shards peppered her cheek and arm. She sucked in a breath, and tried to control the fear that was burning like a wildfire in her chest. Her hands went to her waist. There were gold coins weaved into the shawl that she always wore around her hips. Some had been handed down to her from her clan, and others she had collected through her travels. She ripped one of the strings and put the coin on Regina's shuddering chest. It glowed green almost immediately. There was no change Regina's condition. Her great great grandmother had sewn her shawl, it had been in her clan for centuries and she was the last of her clan. She ripped the shawl into pieces without a second thought. Coins scattered on the grass and she placed them on Regina's chest-as many as she could fit. They started to absorb the magic, but it had little effect. Esmeralda swept the tainted coins off of Regina's body and started putting larger, older coins in their place. The pile of poisonous coins grew on the grass and she started to scramble to find clean ones. After forty coins, Regina's breathing eased. After sixty her color started to return. After more than eighty coins dark eyes snapped open.

**

"A gypsy?" Snow's voice echoed through the diner.

Aurora nodded, "She helped us stow-away on Hook's ship after Mulan put my heart back."

If anyone else had noticed her voice soften when speaking about Mulan, they didn't say so. Then again, how many times did someone put your heart back into your chest? Having her heart almost pulled out had been terrifying, but someone putting it back in sounded different. It sounded incredibly intimate.

"You trusted a gypsy?" David's voice was on the border of surprise and disgust and it shook Emma out of her thoughts. She knew some Gypsies, of the American type. They were very cliquish and hard to get to know. Some were on the grift, posing as legitimate businessmen, carnival riff-raff, and the ever popular fortune teller act, to name a few of the classics. There were others, though, that were simply wanderers. They floated from town to town, never settling down. She understood that lifestyle. That had been her lifestyle for many years.

"Wait, wait, woah." Emma held her hands up. "I think the most important part of this whole thing is that Cora is here. In Storybrooke." She unconsciously moved closer to Henry. She pushed her hand through her blonde hair, "This is the worst case scenario." Her previous toilet-induced happiness buzz dissipated. We've gotta circle the wagons, call the Storybrooke National Guard Unit up and into action, and I don't know, prepare stuff." Emma's thoughts raced, "We have to tell Regina."

"She will be told." Emma smirked, typical Mulan, strait to the point without wasting a word.

"Well of course she knows. She probably met her mother at the dock with open arms and a box of chocolates." Snow grabbed her bow and quiver and scowled, "We have to stop them before they start an all-out war."

"Regina is the Evil Queen, right?"

"Yes." Henry, previously quiet, answered the Princess that he recognized from his dreams.

"Then she wasn't running anywhere and she's not with Cora. She collapsed back on the black stone road and the gypsy carried her away." Aurora's brows furrowed as she spoke. "She did not look good. I think she was confused, she called me by my mother's name."

The Diner erupted, everyone was saying something. Grumpy, already on the far side of tipsy, called for an immediate triple execution: Regina, Cora and the unnamed Gypsy. Ruby, the voice of reason now, went to Snow's side and tried to bring order to the room. Emma just stared at the chaos, unable to form words. Emma looked down at Henry and saw the worry in his eyes, "I'm sure she's okay, Henry." She hoped Regina was okay.

"A gypsy is almost as bad as Cora." Snow's words finally quieted the chaos and she continued in the regal tone that Emma still could not reconcile with the woman she had called Mary Margret.

"But we don't know who she is yet."

"She's allied herself with the Evil Queen and she's a gypsy how much more do we need to know?" Grumpy, raring for a fight, beat his fist on the table to emphasize his drunken point.

Emma sighed, "What is the big deal with gypsies?" The entire room looked at Emma and Snow sighed. It was that annoying sigh that she heaved every time something magical, mythical or fairy tale fantastic that everyone but her understood came up.

"Gypsys are a dark and inferior people, Emma. They are barbarians who have destroyed every settlement they ever built. They pass from town to town robbing the people, selling snake oil and fake love potions, spreading disease and cursing innocents. They were aligned with the Evil Queen in the war. You can't trust them."

Emma blinked, she hadn't expected that. She had never expected a racist remark to fly out of sweet Mary Margret's mouth. Then again, Emma mentally sighed, the bow wielding woman before her was not Mary Margret. Still, though, fairy tale racism? Really?

"Gypsies, The Romani people that is, weren't aligned with anyone during the war." Archie pushed his glasses back up his nose and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "The Romani don't recognize any Kings or Queens." He sounded like he knew more than he was letting on about the subject, but Emma had no time to push him on it because no one allowed for silence, everyone kept talking.

"That's true enough." Everyone turned to Granny Lucas. She stood behind the counter, "I never met a gypsy that I liked, but they weren't as bad as everyone makes 'em out to be. Most of you youngsters don't remember this, but some kingdoms took on Romani nursemaids as part of a peace pact with the Gypsy clans. It fell out of practice by the time King Leopold and Queen Eva, may their spirits rest in peace, had Snow." She wiped the counter and sighed, "But back in the Old Days a King would welcome a young Romani girl into his castle and she would protect his children from dark magics and assassins and in exchange her clan could come and go in his lands as they needed with no harassment or tariffs."

Snow's mouth twisted into a scowl, "My mother and father would have never allowed a gypsy near me."

"The gypsy woman knew The Evil Queen." Mulan met Emma's eyes and continued, "She seemed distressed, but we were not allowed to see her face, so I am not sure what she was truly thinking. She said she was taking her home."

***

Regina woke up with a strangled scream. Her hand went to her heart and her fingers brushed against something hard. Her vision swam into focus and she recognized the branches above her head. She was home, under her tree. How had she gotten home? Her last clear memory had been leaving Gold's Shop everything after that was hazy hallucinations of familiar faces and a warped landscape of buildings twisted beyond recognition. She turned her head, and felt like even that was a gargantuan effort. The face that looked down at her was painfully familiar. The dark hair, the emerald green eyes, the ragged scar that cut across a dusky cheek and through plump lips. "Am I dead?" She croaked, her throat was raw and speaking was painful, "is this Hell?"

Husky laughter, as familiar as the face, filled her ears, "Does this look like Hell, my Little Nightingale?"

Regina licked her painfully dry and cracked lips, and was unsurprised to taste blood. "You're dead. My mother showed me your heart. She crushed it into dust."

Esmeralda, her childhood nurse, the woman she had wanted to be her mother so much that she had wished on every star and knelt in every mushroom circle she had ever seen, rolled her warm green eyes.

"She lied. No one, no witch, demon or even the Dark One himself, can remove a Romani heart. To attempt would mean death. This is known."

This is known. She couldn't even count how many times she had heard that phrase as a child. It was warm and familiar, like a favorite security blanket.

"Here." Esmeralda took Regina's limp and shaking hand in her own steady one and placed it on her chest. "Do you feel it?"

She could, Regina felt the steady thud of the other woman's heart. She was alive. Something in Regina, she did not know what, broke. She pushed herself off the grass and grabbed onto the woman above her, clinging to her like a life raft. Tears, unbidden, rushed to her eyes. She didn't understand how this was possible, but she didn't care. Maybe she was dead, maybe her mind had broken and she was locked in the asylum. Maybe Esmeralda was truly beside her. It didn't matter which it was, she was not alone. For the first time since her father, she was not alone. The scents she had always associated with Esmeralda, sandalwood and cinnamon spice, met her nose. Comfortable, familiar and always welcoming arms wrapped around her the last of her control broke. Tears, heartbroken and bitter tears coninued to pour out of her eyes. Regina buried her face in the other woman's shoulder and the sobs overtook her. The logistics of it escaped her, but Regina found herself being pulled onto Esmeralda's lap. She hadn't sat in anyone's lap since she was ten years old. Regina, for the first time in a long time, felt safe and loved and that was the cruelest feeling of all because it would not last. It never lasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally posted this story there was some negative reactions to my charecterization of Snow and David. Specifically their blatent display of racism. Let me make something very clear: yes, they are racist against Esmeralda. That is 120% my intention. Yes, it is unapologetic and uncomfortable for everyone. Again, that's my point.
> 
> I made this decision for several reasons, one was a jab at the racism on the actual show. More importantly I was thinking about the story as a whole, about Regina and her being a Latina. Also gypsies were very much discriminated throughout history. Not that Esmeralda is based on real-world Gypsy culture, but symbolically I wanted her to carry that weight.
> 
> This will be a constant theme and will touch every character. So will sexuality, family, and a lot of other themes. I will, of course, tag when necessary, but the rating of M does cover many things in this story, not just the sex.


	5. Every Modern Convenience

Chapter IV

Every Modern Convenience

 

"Congratulations, you've just reunited mother and son, maybe one day they'll even invite you for dinner."

His words were salt on Regina's open and bloody wounds. They both knew that would never happen. That dinner would never come and even if it did, Regina wouldn't be around to enjoy it. It had been a truly foolish move, Gold mused, but once Regina put her mind to something there was no way to stop her. It was a quality of hers that he had used to his advantage before. To be honest he had looked forward to using her power and desperate need for love and happiness again. Regina was like a loaded gun, he would just need to point her in the direction he wished and pull the trigger. It had worked before, spectacularly, and he had no doubt he could have pushed her to the edge of the precipice at least one more time. It was a pity she was either dead or dying. The energy she had absorbed at the well had been too potent, too powerful and too poisonous to survive. The fact that she hadn't immediately crumpled into a smoking corpse spoke to how much power and potential his former apprentice had in her. It would eat through her quickly though, from the inside out. She had, to be crude, injected battery acid into her bloodstream. It would froth in her brain, burn through her limbs and attack her heart. It would be a cruel and painful death. A cruel death for a cruel woman, the townsfolk would say. No one, not even the boy she'd raised as her son for ten years, would mourn the fallen queen or be thankful for her sacrifice. On the contrary, there would probably be a celebration of some sort. There might even be fireworks. Wasn't it terribly ironic, that Regina had sacrificed her life to allow the two women she hated more than anything to return to Storybrooke to their perfect family and their happy ending? It was almost poetic, in a morbid way of course.

He would have to be the one to collect her body, before the mob pounced on it, and put her in the Mills Mausoleum. He would lay her casket, black onyx and gold he decided, beside her father's in the crypt. Should he dress her cold corpse as The Evil Queen, corsets, jewels and dark, dramatic makeup? Or the Mayor of Storybrooke: Designer suit, understated makeup with a picture of Henry clutched in her stiff fingers? He smirked at the choices and wondered how each would play out. Henry and Regina, loving father and daughter, would lie in their coffins side by side for eternity. It would be a tragic and dark image laid out for the one person who would mourn for them; for Cora.

Ah Cora, he absently mindedly ran his fingers across the decorative swirls on his cane's silver handle, the Queen of Hearts herself had descended on Storybrooke with little fanfare or attention. He had noticed. How could he miss the shudder of power when the ship came into the usually calm and silent harbor? Did Jones really think he wouldn't recognize The Jolly Roger? Then again it was equally laughable to think that Cora thought he couldn't see through her cloaking spell. He had taught the woman magic, after all. She would be devastated to find her daughter dead. Devastated, furious and searching for vengeance. Cora's endless supply of cold and calculated blood lust was what drove her magic. She was, quite literally, heartless and that was what made her so dangerous. She was a very different woman then the one he had struck a deal with years before. The passionate miller's daughter, who smelled of straw and cheap marketplace perfume, had become a powerful sorceress and the supposedly mad queen of Wonderland. He thought of the spinning wheel that had so recently been used to curse David Nolan to sleep. It was hard, very hard, to spin straw to gold without thinking of the heat of Cora's skin under his fingers. The way she had kissed him. Then she had been gone. Just like Milah. Just like Baelfire. His hand clenched around the handle of his cane again. Cora was trouble, far worse than her daughter could imagine being.

Without her heart she had no weaknesses, not love for her daughter or even self-preservation, just a desire for power. Regina, at least, had love. He had used her love for the stable boy. Then he had dangled the idea of happiness in front of her and she had chased that. Regina did so want her happy ending. Now there was Henry to consider. As Regina's only child, thanks to him of course, Cora would be very interested in him. Young Henry Mills, could prove to be very valuable in the coming days.

His thoughts were interrupted by the tinkling of bells that signaled someone was entering the shop. Hadn't he put the closed sign up? He was sure he had. He'd had enough of Storybrooke's intrepid citizens today. He limped out of his backroom, "The sign says I'm clo-Belle." Everything, his face, his voice, and even his thoughts softened at the sight of the woman.

She smiled at him, "Rumple."

The light from the closing door gave a halo effect to dark hair that curled at her shoulders. She was angelic, with her crystal blue eyes and quick and easy smile.

"I heard there was some sort of dust-up by the well. I wanted to make sure you're all right."

Just like that, with a few simple words, he dismissed his plotting.

"Well, my dear, let me make us some tea and I will tell you about it."

***

The impromptu party had ended quickly and on a sour note after the tense gypsy conversation and Emma had taken the opportunity to excuse herself and Henry. They walked down the streets of Storybrooke hand in hand. Henry was probably a little too old to hold hands with her, but she was so happy to be back with him that she probably wouldn't have let go even if he'd begged.

Was this how Regina felt when she was with Henry?

The thought was so startling that Emma stumbled as she walked. She had been a real mother to Henry for what seemed like all of five minutes. Regina had been there for years. She'd taken care of Henry when Emma had been too young, too wild and too hurt and stupid to step up and be a parent. What had Regina told her? She had changed every diaper, soothed every fever and endured every tantrum. The way the woman's voice had hitched on the word tantrum told Emma that Henry had probably thrown more than a few.

Then Emma had blown into town and taken him away.

"Mom Mom Mom! Emma!" Henry tugged on her arm hard enough to catch her attention.

She jerked to attention, "Yeah, Kid?"

Henry looked up at her, concern flashing in his hazel eyes, "Are you okay? I called your name like four times."

She hadn't heard him. "Yeah, sorry, I must be more tired than I thought. What did you wanna ask me?"

"Do you think she's really okay?"

She blinked, momentarily confused, "Who?"

Henry rolled his eyes, "My mo-Regina. Aurora said that she collapsed in the middle of the road."

In all the commotion about Cora and Hook and nameless Gypsies she hadn't even thought about Regina's reported collapse. For some reason that made her feel ashamed of herself. Even more ashamed of herself than before. She didn't like the feeling.

"I-uh, I don't know."

Henry frowned, "It looked like it hurt allot."

Emma paused again, what had happened at the well before she'd climbed out of it? "What did?"

Henry blinked, "The magic. She sucked up all this green magic from the well. Mr. Gold and Mom thought that Cora would come through and Mom was scared but I begged her to trust me because I knew you and Grams were coming through. It looked like it hurt allot. She fell down against a tree. Do you think that's why she collapsed?"

Well she wasn't a doctor or a magician, but considering what Henry told her, yeah it was probably what had caused Regina to collapse. She tried to figure out what to say as they walked.

"I'll go check on her tomorrow after I drop you off at school."

Emma hadn't realized what she was going to say until it was already out of her mouth. Henry smiled up at her, satisfied with that answer. So apparently she was going to check on Regina tomorrow. Joy and rapture.

In the few minutes it took to get back to the apartment she shared with Mary Mar-Snow, whatever, Henry had already planned out half of her next week. They were going to the stables to meet his horse and there was the school family dance, and the science fair was coming up too. It was all so domestic-a page out of Mommy Magazine. This whole Mother thing was just as overwhelming as being a fairy tale princess, if not more so. She wasn't ready for any of this. Henry ran ahead of her, into the building and down the hall to unlock the door, which was great because she had no idea where her keys were.

The first things she saw the couch, comfy and soft, she almost wept for joy. She fell on it, face first, and didn't want to move. She breathed in deep, expecting to catch the whiff of lavender and vanilla that Mary Margret's place always smelled of. She, instead, smelled the smoky, grimy filth of a body and clothes that had been worn for far too long. She reeked. She pulled the collar of her leather jacket and sniffed it. It smelled so awful that she almost gagged. She shrugged out of it and tossed it in the general vicinity of the trash can. There was no saving the garment. She lifted her head up to find that Henry had disappeared. To retrieve his book she assumed, and with that thought she shoved herself up off the couch.

She walked into the bathroom and stared, just stared. She almost felt a tear come to her eye. It was so pretty and clean and she was so dirty-she was a very dirty girl. She closed the door behind her and walked towards her goal without blinking, it was almost a trance. She was filthy and she smelled like a garbage truck and she hadn't had a proper shower in far far too long.

"I'm a dirty girl but that's how you like me." Emma loved, seriously loved, modern plumbing. She was never going to take it for granted again. Hell, she wasn't even sure she was going to leave this bathroom again. She pushed the plastic shower curtain aside. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. the tub and shower were old and its pipes shuddered and squeaked and there was a crack down the porclin side of the tub but the water would be hot and plentiful. She turned the tap on full and ran her hands under the stream of clean water.

"Oh my God, you're so hot."

Emma peeled off her tank top and jeans and dropped them to the floor. Her underwear, which was beyond saving at this point, fell to the floor beside her clothes and she stepped into the stream.

"And wet."

The water pounded down on her neck and shoulders. It slicked her tangled mop of curls to her scalp and Emma let out a moan.

"That feels so good."

The water was just a little too hot for comfort, but felt amazing. She blindly reached for the nearest bottle of body wash. She flipped the top up and poured the soap directly into her hands. Her eyelids, heavy as lead, slammed closed and her mouth curved

Apples, of course. Why had they even had this bottle? She didn't remember. She rubbed the shower gel across her flat stomach and breasts. Her hands rubbed the soap across her stiff shoulders and down her arms.

The shower now smelled like Regina.

Images of the other woman, the Evil Queen, the Bitchy Mayor, the adoptive mother of her son flashed behind her closed eyelids. A woman with dark eyes full of secrets and sadness who had destroyed a world in search of happiness. Her voice, hot and rough like whiskey sounded in her ears. She always called her Miss Swan. She had heard it called in the frigid yet professional mayor voice and the bitter voice of a terrified mother. What would it sound like in the bedroom? Would Regina call her Miss Swan when she climaxed? Would her voice sweeten with her pleasure or would it become deeper and rougher with passion?

Her skin would taste like "the best apple cider she'd ever tasted" and would feel like silk under her fingers. Emma knew that despite the woman's olive toned skin, she would bruise easily. Love bites on her shoulder and thighs, scratches down her back, and lips swollen from kissing. She would have to wear long sleeves to hide the bruises on her wrists from Emma's handcuffs.

"Emma."

The queen, gloriously naked, would buck underneath Emma, begging for her release.

"Emma!"

She would lift the impeccably dressed mayor onto the desk she ruled the City Hall from and lift the woman's skirt.

"EMMA!"

She had saved the woman's life twice, once from Gold's fire and once from the soul sucker. Regina would thank her with a hot and eager mouth maybe on her knees looking up at Emma. She would quietly call her "my savior" before kissing her way down Emma's body.

"EMMA!"

Mary Margret-Snow's voice followed by loud insistent banging on the bathroom door snapped Emma out of her daze. She jerked and came very close to slipping in the shower. She grabbed the curtain to stop herself and winced when she heard one of the curtain rings rip through the plastic curtain.

"JUST A MINUTE I'M ALMOST DONE!" Emma had been standing with her head down, one hand braced on the slick tile wall of the shower and the other hand had been sliding down her body towards-

"You better not have used all the hot water!"

Emma winced again. The shower had turned ice cold, but she hadn't even noticed. The cold was nice, refreshing even. Honestly she needed the cold now more then the heat. She could feel her pulse settling and the buzzing heat that had settled in her belly and between her legs started to slowly dissipate. She reached for the shampoo bottle with a somewhat less shaky hand.

Five minutes later she walked out of the shower wrapped in the fuzzy white terrycloth robe that Mary Margaret had insisted on buying her several months before.

She sheepishly apologized for using all the hot water before hurrying to her room to put on pajama bottoms and a fresh, clean and bleached tank top. She padded back out to the living room and settled down on the couch with Henry to watch TV. She could not think about what had just happened. Her brain was too tired and she was too emotionally spent to think about that. Henry, overjoyed that she was back, popped his new favorite DVD into the player and they settled in to watch.

She started to doze off about five minutes into The Avengers. She was trying to pay attention, but quickly lost it when the brunette second in command, who snapped orders like Regina, came on screen.

Okay, so where had the sexual thoughts of Regina come from? It wasn't as if she was attracted to the woman. She was bossy, bitchy, had a stick up her ass and she was literally evil. She was also beautiful, brunette and broken. Those were her holy trinity: the things that always attracted Emma to trouble, like a moth to a flame.

She fell asleep somewhere between Captain America beating up a punching bag and Samuel Jackson saying something totally badass.

***

Henry had already seen The Avengers about sixteen times, so wasn't disappointed when Mary Margret turned it off so Emma could sleep on the couch undisturbed. He helped David tuck an afghan around his sleeping mother and smiled a little bit. He was so glad she was home. He did worry a little, though, when she started mumbling in her sleep. He didn't want her to have bad dreams. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, though, when he clearly heard the sleeping blonde whisper "Regina" in her sleep.

They had only been reunited for a few hours and the Evil Queen was already trying to hurt his family again.

***

She felt weak in a way she hadn't in years. She had no physical or emotional strength left in her. She could stand, if she leaned against her apple tree, but walking had simply been too much. Had she been alone, she would not have made it.

Thankfully, she was not alone. Esmeralda helped her walk to the backdoor. The kitchen was clean, but that was not why Esmeralda gasped when she helped Regina into it. The Romani woman did not have the benefits of the curse on her side. Regina had awoken in town just like everyone else and the curse had filled in the blanks. She had instinctively known what an electric stove was and how to use a faucet. This was an entirely different world for Esmeralda.

"I know it's different. Very different."

That, Regina knew, was the understatement of the year.

Despite the strong arms helping to hold her up, her knees started to wobble again.

"We need to get you into bed."

She scowled at Esmeralda. She did not want to go to bed. She hadn't seen this woman in so many years. Long, hard, bitter years full of loneliness and evil deeds. She wanted to talk to her, explain how she had turned from a chubby-cheeked ten year old into an evil queen and then into an outcast ex-mayor. She wanted to ask where she had been. Find out how the woman had come to Storybrooke. She wanted to thank her for saving her life. When everything in her tastefully yet functional decorated kitchen suddenly doubled, she decided that sitting down for a minute might be a good idea.

"There's a couch in the den, the room just through here. We can sit down and talk a minute."

Regina has no idea what is going through her beloved nursemaid's head. Was she overwhelmed by the world she has found herself in? Was she disgusted by what her Little Nightingale had become? Did Esmeralda know that she'd killed Daddy to get this empty mansion in a town full of people that hated her?

They get to the den, slowly but surely, and Regina sank onto the fainting couch with a sigh. Esmeralda sits in the nearby overstuffed chair.

Regina had so many things she wanted to say, questions she wanted to ask. She's so tired, though, in more ways than one.

"I'm sorry."

Regina doesn't know what she's apologizing for, exactly. Maybe for everything, she isn't sure.

"I know you are, Nightingale."

She slid down into a laying position, her eyes still locked on Esmeralda. She was afraid that if she looked away, Esmeralda will be gone. It's childish and petty, but that was what she felt.

Esmeralda looked different, older and somehow sadder than before. Her clothes are still a beautiful rainbow of bright colors and ruffles of lace and silk. Her hair was as thick and wild as it had always been, but not there were streaks of white intertwined with the midnight black. Where had she been? Why had she left? Why was she back? Why now? How?

"I missed you."

Yet another tear streaked down Regina's cheek. She had all these questions, but wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answers. She didn't want to take charge and be the mayor. She just wanted things to be like they were before-just for a few more minuites.

"A lot."

Her eyes were sliding closed and Regina fought to keep them open. She wasn't ready to go to sleep, not yet.

"Sleep, Regina. I will be here when you wake up."

Regina shook her head, she wanted to speak, there was so much to say: years and years worth of things to say.

"I have a son."

Her pride and joy, her reason for living, her Henry.

Esmeralda smiled, and looked every bit as beautiful as she had when Regina was a child.

"I named him after Daddy."

She plucked the framed picture of Henry off the nearby side-table with shaky hands and handed it to Esmeralda. There are long lists, thick tomes that could be written about the evil she's done in her life. Henry is the one good thing she's ever done.

Esmeralda looked at the picture and Regina would swear that there were tears forming in the other woman's eyes.

"How?"

Regina could not be surprised that Esmeralda asked her that. The Romani, as she had been told countless times as a child, knew all that was past, present and future.

"I adopted him when he was a newborn."

Adoption was not only accepted in the Romani, it was a revered tradition. When she was a child she had often imagined that Esmeralda would adopt her and the three of them, Esmeralda, Daddy and herself, would run away and go on adventures together.

Regina was slipping in and out of a doze so she didn't see the woman move, but felt a pair of lips press against her forehead.

"He is beautiful. Your father would have adored him."

Something warm was spread over her and Regina felt herself giving into the sleep that her body so petulantly demanded.

"Will you stay?"

Her voice sounded small, like Henry's when he'd been three and she'd been his everything.

"Of course."

Then Esmeralda started to sing a familiar song. It was the same lullaby she had fallen asleep to for her first ten years of life. It was the same lullaby that she had sang to Henry when he'd been a baby.

***

She fell asleep with a smile on her still too pale face.

Esmeralda watched the younger woman fall asleep and smiled. Regina was curled up on what she had called a couch. Though she had handed her back the picture of the boy, Regina had not put it back on the table, she curled her arms around it. She clutched to the picture in her sleep as tightly as she had her dolls as a girl. Esmeralda did not know where the blankets were kept and frankly had no idea where to start looking. Regina, though, would get cold, she always had. Esmeralda spread her cloak over Regina's slight form as a blanket and couldn't help but chuckle when the woman snuggled into it. Her face, pale and drawn, held stress and pain even in her sleep. Regina, the child of her heart, was no longer the innocent she had once been. Esmeralda had heard of her deeds. Word and fear of the Evil Queen had stretched far and wide. Despite her knowledge, and Esmeralda had known that things would be complicated at best, and that Regina would need lots of help, but she had never expected it to be this bad.

"Oh Henry, what has happened to our little girl?"

She spoke, of course, to Regina's father, not her son.

Son, Regina finally had a child of her own. Where was he and why did even mentioning his name come with both pride and sorrow in her Little One's brown eyes? Her eyebrows furrowed when Regina started to whimper in her sleep. She had never grown out of her night terrors, it seemed. She settled down beside the woman, as she had so many times when the woman had been only a girl, and stroked her hair to calm her.

When Regina calmed again, Esmeralda pulled her satchel close and opened it. There were many odds and ends in her bag. Clothing, food, a dagger for protection, and then there was her book. She took the ancient leather volume out and opened it on her lap. She had to learn about the new land she had found herself in. She flipped the book open to the middle.

"Show me Storybrooke."

She read almost as quickly as the words appeared on the page. Her concentration only broke when Regina began to whimper again. Most of the sounds were indistinguishable and jumbled, but one word was inmistakable and it caused Esmeralda's jet black brow to rise in curiosity. Who was Emma and why did she haunt her Little Nightingale's dreams?


	6. Esmeralda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter is flashback.

Chapter V

Esmeralda

"They say," The man told the bundle in his arms, "that the Romani know all that was, is, and will be. They are in touch with the deepest and most ancient magics."

Prince Henry rode through the forest with no guards or company save for the precious baby he held close to his heart. He had not known love until his daughter had been placed, fluid covered and wailing, into his arms. She was three months old and still he stared at her in wonder. Her eyes had darkened to match his own dark brown and her hair, once so sparse and light, had become thick and dark. She looked like him. She was his precious princess and he would love her absolutely and always.

"My mother, your grandmother, had a Romani nursemaid and she taught her the Old Ways."

His father had not approved of the Old Ways. He was a man who worried about money and power more than the magics of nature and the balance of forces. Henry missed his mother more than he could explain. She'd possessed a sharp tongue, a quick wit and a kind heart. The night he and Cora had danced he had thought he'd seen a bit of his mother sparkling in the eyes behind the stolen mask. He'd been wrong. She was more like his father then his mother. She had bought their marriage with the straw she spun to gold. He was her way to power, and their marriage was his father's way of refilling the kingdom's coffers. All he had received from the marriage pact was Regina. He looked down at her, asleep against his chest, and knew that she was worth more to him then magic gold or a cold throne.

"When each of us, your aunts, uncles and I, were born my mother took us to the woods. I don't know how but she always knew where to find the Romani, the Gypsies. There was an old woman, a soothsayer, and she would tell Mother of our destinies." He was deeply worried for his daughter. Cora practiced magic, but it was not all spinning wheels and gold. There were darker spells and each day she grew more and more comfortable with using them. She was becoming more like him, like the imp. He didn't want Cora's darkness to touch Regina. He had to know that she would be protected from it. He had to ask his mother's chosen people for help.

The scouts found him long before he found the caravan. There was an empty road and in the blink of an eye two archers and a man with a rapier stood in his path.

"State your business."

The Romani recognized no kingdoms or kings. "My name is Henry, son of Rose, and I've brought my child to see Patia the Soothsayer."

A fourth person stepped out of the dark tangle of trees, "Patia no longer travels in this realm."

Henry recognized the phrase and felt his heart sink, Patia had been his mother's nursemaid and had blessed him and all of his siblings.

He lowered his head, "May her journey be ever-bright."

He tugged the reigns to turn around and go home.

"Her granddaughters serve as our soothsayers now. They will see you, Son of Rose."

One of the men led him through the maze of tents and wagons to a familiar red and green tent. He dismounted from his horse and knew, without being told, that the young man would see to his steed. The Romani would consider it rude not to see to a visitor's horse. The movement jostled Regina awake, but she did not cry. She gurgled a little and when he looked down at her, she smiled.

He stepped ducked inside of the tent and when his eyes adjusted lowered his head in a sign of respect. "Thank you for seeing me, Soothsayers."

The first woman, her face hidden by a heavy green cloak and hood, nodded to him. "Our clan has known your family for many generations, Son of Rose."

The second woman, hidden in a red cloak, stepped towards him, "And who is this?"

He shifted the baby in his arms, "This is Regina, my first born."

The first woman waved a hand over the baby's now uncovered head and immediately stepped backwards. The second woman let her hand hover over the baby's head for a moment then also stumbled away.

"We will not bless this child."

The first woman's voice was horse and her words harshly spoken.

The second woman shook her head, "Go, Son of Rose, and do the merciful thing."

Henry pulled Regina close to his chest again, "The merciful thing?"

"Drown the babe in the nearest stream."

Henry's jaw dropped open, "What blasphemy do you speak?!"

The third woman stepped forward, and placed herself between Henry and the other two soothsayers. She was taller than the first two and robed in a purple cloak.

"Let me see the child."

Henry shook his head and took a step back, "I will not let anyone hurt my daughter."

"I will not harm her, Son of Rose, I give my word."

There was something in her voice that he trusted. His mother had taught him that a Romani never broke their word.

She reached out and the sleeve of her dress slid back to reveal bright pink burn scars. She took Regina and the baby, who usually protested being held by anyone new, gurgled happily. The woman touched the baby's smooth forehead with two slender fingers.

"This child has a dark cloud around her, Son of Rose."

Fear, the same fear that had been squirming in his gut since he'd caught Cora mucking around with a book of magic spells, crawled up his throat. "What does that mean?"

The purple clad woman pushed a dark strand of hair off of the baby's forehead, "She will bring wonders and sorrows to our world. She has been touched by The Dark One."

"The Imp."

He hissed the words through gritted teeth. What had Cora done to their child?

The Romani soothsayer let out a small sigh, "What are you willing to give up for this child's happiness?"

Henry spoke immediately and without thought, "Anything-everything."

The woman switched Regina to one arm and used the newly freed one to push back her hood.

Henry was immediately struck dumb by the most incredible green eyes he'd ever seen. The woman was an exotic beauty the likes of which he had never beheld. She had dark, luminous hair and a face that could make an angel weep. Her face, though beautifully formed, was marked by a viscous red scar that cleaved her lips and cut across one cheek. This mark, he knew, was one of violence. He knew what a sword stroke to the face looked like. He could not fathom who could attack such a beautiful woman.

His hands responded without his command. He brushed his thumb across her scarred cheek. "Tell me who did this, Lady. They will not escape The King's Justice." His whole hand came alive with sparks when he touched her.

"He is far out of your king's reach, Son of Rose."

Henry dropped his hand, "You just told me that my daughter will be the sorrow of the world, I think you can call me Henry, Soothsayer."

The woman looked away from him, "Henry, then. You will have to sacrifice your very life to give your daughter even the smallest chance of happiness. She will go to the ends of this world and beyond searching for her happiness. She will sow revenge and war and reap only loss and sadness."

Tears sprang to his eyes, "Because of my wife and the imp?"

The emerald eyed soothsayer lowered her eyes to look at the baby in her arms. "The choices she makes will ultimately be hers, but I cannot deny that I see their machinations in her life, like ever-present shadows on the wall.

Henry fell to his knees before her, "Please tell me what to do. Surely there is something. Are you telling me that she will never have love or happiness? That she will be a demon with no redemption?"

The woman lowered to her knees in front of him and held the baby out to him. "There is always redemption, Henry-father of Regina, and there is always love. Hers will be a long, complicated story but it is not without light or love."

He took the baby and held her close, so close and so tight that Regina began to wiggle in discomfort. "I can save her, then?"

She touched his face, as gently as he had hers, "She will have a savior." She closed her eyes, the words tugged a tear out of her eye, "But not you, it is not your destiny. I'm sorry."

Two hands, one on each shoulder, violently tugged the soothsayer away from him.

"Sister!" The green one exclaimed.

"We cannot have anything to do with this dark child." The red one said gravely.

She shook herself loose of them. "I saw my destiny with the child."

Both women shook their heads so violently that their hoods slid back.

"You cannot."

"The leader will forbid it."

"Esmeralda do not do this!"

Henry let the name settle in his mind, it was as foreign and lovely as the woman it belonged to.

"She will need a guide in this life."

He lifted himself to one knee, was she saying what he thought she was saying?

"Please." He tugged the bottom of her robe, like a peasant begging a king, "Please help me, Esmeralda. Help me save my daughter."

The woman in the green cloak sighed, "He is weak. His love for this dark child will be the end of us all."

The woman in red shook her head, "His love is a weakness this world cannot afford."

Henry's head fell forward, he was too overwrought to hold it steady anymore. How many times had he heard his father say that? Love was weakness. He had never believed it until now.

Esmeralda tugged Henry's head back up forcing him to look deep into her eyes, "No."

She touched his face, sending vibrations through his entire being, "Love is always strength."

Esmeralda moved her other hand to touch the babe's chubby face gently, "and love is the only thing that can save this child."


	7. Chapter VI:  Reunited

Chapter VI

Reunited

 

Everybody went to Granny's Diner. Literally everyone in Storybrooke. They came to eat, to gossip and to drink coffee in the morning, milkshakes in the afternoon and alcohol at night. Granny's hosted every party, formal or otherwise, and was the stage for plenty of scenes both good and bad. Ruby had personally witnessed fourteen break-ups, fifty-five first dates and countless fights. Twenty-eight years with the same people living in limbo together made for a special blend of drama. Maybe that's why she loved her job. It wasn't always the greatest and the schedule sort of took over her life, but she did genuinely enjoy her work. She enjoyed being at the crossroads of the town, being into everyone's business and knowing exactly what was up.

 

Her job had allowed her to be one of the first people to meet the town's newest arrivals. Princess Aurora and her strong and silent guard dog Mulan had brought drama and big news back from the Old World with them. Everything about them stuck out and not for the first time, Ruby appreciated the knowledge the curse had bestowed on her. She knew what cars and cell phones and e-bay were. Everything about the newly arrived women reminded her of The Enchanted Forest. They smelled of magic, pine trees and roasted chimera. Scents she had thought she would never smell again, that she wasn't sure she wanted to smell again.

 

Aurora was dressed in the tattered remains of a gown, the princess sort of thing that the nobles pranced around in, and a crown. Girl needed a makeover, stat. She had offered last night when Granny had given the new arrivals each a room for the night, but Aurora had politely declined. Politely for a royal, that was. Ruby loved Snow and David, but had never felt at home in their world of riches and castles. They had always been kind and true friends, but most nobles were not. They thought they were better than all the so-called common folk. Aurora struck her as one of the spoiled princess types who would trip a servant just for looking at them in the eyes. Maybe she was wrong, she hoped she was. There had been something about the way the girl had declined her offer of clothes that set her inner wolf on edge. She, and her clothes, were equal to the princess here. There were no Kings and Queens in Storybrooke, just animal shelter workers, school teachers, mayors and waitresses.

 

Mulan had also declined the clothing, but she had also declined the room. She had settled down in front of Aurora's door and proceeded to clean and polish her sword and armor. Though her hands were busy, her eyes had been alert. She had kept guard duty over Aurora all night long. She had tried to, at least, Ruby had caught her uncomfortably dozing with her head leaned against the door frame, this morning when she'd left her room to open the diner. The woman's sword had still been in her hands. That was another thing Ruby liked about Storybrooke, there were no servants. Sure, she was a waitress and she served people, but she wasn't bound to anyone's service. She wasn't expected to stand guard all night. Not anymore.

 

With that in mind, she took the women's breakfast over to their booth. Neither woman had known what to order, so she brought pancakes for both of them and a large steaming cup of coffee for Mulan.

 

"What are these?"

 

Aurora eyed the plate with suspicion, her voice betrayed her confusion.

 

Mulan smirked, "Pancakes, they're good."

 

The warrior picked up the ceramic coffee mug and inhaled. Pleasure played across her face for a moment and she smiled a small, reserved, smile and nodded her head to Ruby, " _ Thank you _ ."

 

The bells over the entryway jingled and Ruby turned, out of sheer habit, away from the princess and the warrior. The newcomers were regulars, did Granny's ever get another kind of customer, and Ruby grinned. "Steve, Lia, you want your usuals?" She walked back around the counter and started to prepare their drinks.

 

Steve was the owner and only agent at Storybrooke Insurance and he liked his coffee hot, black and very strong. Lia was the school principal and liked her latte with soy milk, no foam and fat and sugar free vanilla syrup. Neither answered, and when something heavy, Lia's briefcase, clattered to the floor, Ruby looked over the espresso machine to see what was going on.

 

Lia Weathersby, sharply pressed and a little repressed with never a strand of sandy brown strand of hair out of place, stood in the middle of the diner with her hand over her mouth, blue eyes wide.

" _ Aurora _ ?"

 

* * *

 

 

Emma walked to 108 Mifflin Street. She could have drove, would have loved to drive her precious car, but needed to extra time to think. Then again, maybe she had got used to walking everywhere during her time in the Land that Chevrolet Forgot. What was she supposed to say anyway?

 

Hey, so I heard you sucked up an evil spell so we wouldn't die. Any bad side-effects from that? Kay, thanks. It sounded weird. Of course it did, Emma kicked a pebble and scowled as it disappeared under one of the countless white picket fences that made up the residential area of Storybrooke. Her entire life sounded weird at this point. Just a handful of months ago if someone had told her this was how her life would be, she would have had them committed for psychiatric evaluation. Hell, sometimes she felt like she needed psychiatric help. Too bad the only head-shrinker in town was Jiminy-Freaking-Cricket.

 

She wished she hadn't told Henry she'd do this. She should be at home, possibly enjoying another shower. Then she could go to the station and look at the mess David had made with her paperwork. God, Regina would be pissed when-only Regina wasn't the mayor anymore. Did Storybrooke even need a mayor? Didn't the curse take care of everything anyway?

Ugh! This was all too complicated for her. Need someone to run a quick Three Card Monte game, steal a car, or catch a bail-jumper, then Emma Swan was your woman. All this other stuff, fairy tales and politics and sharing a son with a wicked witch, was way out of her depth. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her clean blue jeans and let out a long sigh. This was her life, though. Storybrooke was home. Her family, as complicated as it was, lived here. She had friends here, and responsibilities. Emma Swan, runner extraordinaire, master of the no-strings-attached approach to life had roots.

 

She scuffed her boots along the sidewalk, slowing down the closer she got to her destination. Roots, Regina had told her that she needed roots. That seemed like so long ago, back before she knew that Henry's fairytales were true. Back when they were just two women fighting over their son. Like divorced gay moms, she snorted at the thought. Ellen Chaikin eat your heart out. Emma had to admit that she had enjoyed being the fun mom. Sneaking Henry candy and indulging him, hanging out. There hadn't been any actual parenting required. She'd got her first dose of being a mom this morning. Henry was not a morning person, at all. He definitely got that from her. He didn't want to go to school, he wanted to stay home and spend time with her. Then he had whined about the lunch money she'd given him. David always came to get him so they could eat at Granny's. After school they were going to the stable, somewhere she'd never been, so he could go horseback riding, something she'd never done. Then, he had told her, they could go to the big Welcome Home party at Granny's. Then they could finish watching  _ The Avengers _ .

 

Emma rubbed at the sudden tension in her forehead. No mention of homework or chores. She was still the fun mom. Except she couldn't be the fun mom anymore, not if Henry lived with her. The Kid needed rules and boundaries and whatever else kids needed. He needed a mom that made him do chores and checked his homework. (She still struggled with math) He needed someone who knew how to cook (without breaking the toaster) and liked to clean and never threw red socks in with white shirts. (worst laundry day ever) He needed someone who knew what the hell a PTA was and why it was important (Emma was pretty sure it had something to do with bake sales of some sort) Basically, The Kid needed Regina. Emma sighed, The Evil Queen was a hard act to follow, and she was struggling.

 

This had been why she had given her son up for adoption in the first place, she knew little to nothing about being a parent. She couldn't give Henry a mansion, she lived in a loft apartment with her parents for God's sake. She was an inexperienced small town Sheriff in a place where freaking dragons lived under the library. Henry's curse had been true, and some days she wished the Kid had just had an overactive imagination. She might have been able to deal with becoming a mother to Henry, or finding her parents or the curse, but all three was a little daunting. Then there was the whole Regina issue. That was a whole other mess. A mess that had been running circles in her head since her shower last night.

 

She rubbed her chest again unconsciously. She had once demanded to know "How the Hell Regina got like this". This meaning an ice-cold, condescending and to hit the nail on the head, evil, bitch she was. She had gotten her answer in the Enchanted Forest. Cora was a monster, worse than Regina had ever dreamed of being. There was something in the elder Mills witch that put Emma on edge. Her internal lie-detector had gone haywire around Cora. There was something very  _ wrong  _ with her. That had been what the hell had happened to Regina, or at least part of it. She had a feeling that there were some important pieces missing from Henry's book.

 

That didn't mean she was ready to roll over and be Regina's bitch, though. The Evil Queen had plenty to answer for. Like the fact that she had a blood vendetta with Emma's entire family for one. She had also tried to kill Emma. Then there was the fact that she had gone out of her way to intimidate and bully Emma since the moment she had stepped into Storybrooke. Emma sighed at her complicated mess of thoughts. She had arrived, once again, at the carefully manicured front lawn of 108 Mifflin Street. The mansion overlooked the town like, well, a castle. It was appropriate, really, since Regina had spent 28 years toying with the people of Storybrooke like her own real-life version of  _ The Sims _ .

 

Emma stared at the house, hands shoved in her pockets, and blew out a sigh. There was no time like the present, she supposed. The walkway from the sidewalk to Regina's door was familiar, and full of memories. This had been where she had met the woman for the first time. Regina had run to Henry, dark eyes wide with fear and relief. That night seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago. She jogged up the stairs and paused at the door, she paused with her fist ready to knock.

She was doing this for Henry.

 

She pounded on the door and waited for the Queen to open the door.

 

After two minutes she pounded again, annoyed by the woman's childish behavior. "Regina! I know you're in there!" Where else would she be? She swung her fist again, as the door opened. She missed hitting the body in the doorway by inches."Shit!"

 

The woman at the door was not Regina, which was both a surprise and a relief.  She was tall, Emma put her at least an inch or two taller than Ruby. She had dusky brown skin and dark hair that was streaked through with white. Her clothes were a mish-mash of colors, textures, and styles from several eras and cultures. It was, Emma quickly realized, the woman's eyes that caught and held her attention. They were the most intense green she had ever seen. They were like lasers cutting into her, pinning her to a cardboard square like a bug. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her skin pebbled into goosebumps underneath her jacket. This had to be the gypsy-woman that everyone had been talking about. 

  
  


"You're not Regina."  Smooth, Emma wanted to give herself an epic face-palm.

 

"I am not."

Emma couldn't place the accent, it sounded like nothing she'd ever heard in this or the other world.

 

"And who are you?"

 

The question jerked her out of her thoughts and she automatically held out her hand to shake. "I'm Emma-I mean Sheriff Swan. I mean I'm Emma Swan, the Sheriff of Storybrooke. Where's Regina?"  Emma Swan, master of public speaking.

 

The woman tilted her head to the side, as if considering her answer very carefully.  Emma slid her hand back into her pocket, and squared her shoulders, waiting.

 

"She is still asleep."

 

Emma blinked, the woman wasn't lying, but Emma had never thought Regina would sleep so late, it was almost eleven o'clock.

 

"Would you like to come inside and wait for her?"

 

Regina would not going to like that, which made Emma say nod her head. The woman stepped back to make room for Emma to enter the mansion.

 

"I didn't get your name."

 

The gypsy woman quirked a scarred lip, "I am Esmeralda."

 

Emma assumed that it was  _ just _ Esmeralda, like Cher, Madonna or Beyoncé. Fairytale people were  _ so _ melodramatic.

 

They walked through Regina's immaculate house and Emma could tell they were going to the kitchen. Emma knew the way fairly well so she spent her time trying to align the facts in her head. This Esmeralda was a Gypsy, which was a group of people that were pretty unpopular back in the Ye Old Crazy Forest. She was somehow connected to Regina, The Evil Queen. If she were Henry that would be enough to put the woman into the dark and ominous evil category. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. Emma was having a hard time getting a reading on the woman. Emma pegged her to be in her late forties, maybe early fifties, but age was sort of relative in Storybrooke. She was tall, slender, and comfortable enough to be barefoot in the Mayor's mansion. She referred to Regina by her first name and answered the woman's door for her.

 

The kitchen was as clean, white and classy as ever. There was not a single dirty dish in the sink or a glass left on the counter. The room was perfect, like the cover photo of Fancy Ass Kitchen Magazine.

"I would offer you tea." Esmeralda stood by the stove, staring at it, "but I have no idea how to use this  _ thing _ ."

 

Emma tried not to laugh, she really did. The woman looked so flustered, though, that a small chuckle might have escaped her throat before she got herself under control.

 

"Yeah, Regina would be pissed if you blew up her kitchen."

 

The woman turned around, black brows arched, "This can happen?"

 

Emma's smile faded. She really didn't know. This woman was, literally, right off the boat from Fairy Tale Land. She didn't know a microwave from SpongeBob SquarePants.

"How about I make the tea and you can tell me how you wound up in Storybrooke."

 

Esmeralda smiled and stepped away from the stove, "An interrogation, Sheriff?" Her voice held a touch of humor

.

Emma stood up and started to open Regina's meticulously ordered cabinets searching for a kettle, "A conversation. I just recently returned to Storybrooke myself and am just checking up on everything. Mulan and Aurora said you stole away on Hook's ship?"

 

Third cabinet to the left held the kettle and an honest to God tea set. There was also a silver ball with holes in it.  "What the hell is this thing?"  She mumbled the question to herself more then Esmeralda.

 

"A diffuser for the tea, bring it too. I have a tea blend with me."

 

Emma shrugged and grabbed the red, of course, kettle and the silver diffuser-thingy.

"I thought tea came from bags."

 

Esmeralda let out a distinct snort and then muttered something in a language that Emma didn't understand before adding, "Not any that I will ever drink."

 

Emma watched, somewhat intrigued, as Esmeralda brought a small cloth bag out of a leather satchel that had been sitting on the kitchen's center island. She watched the woman measure out the spicy mix of leaves and powder while she flipped Regina's stove eye on and sat the full kettle on to heat up. She retrieved two mugs, she was not using Regina's Queen of England tea set, and leaned against the counter.

 

"So about that boat?"

 

Esmeralda turned to look at her and sunk her hands into pockets that Emma hadn't even realized were there. It was such a Regina movement, how many times had she seen the woman slide her hands into her blazer pockets? Too many to count. Just who the hell was this woman?

 

"I knew  _ that woman _ was coming here, and her portal was the only way that I could come too. I brought the warrior and the princess along because their path was similar to mine." She put the sack full of tea back in the leather satchel, "There are many paths that converge in this town."

 

Emma rubbed the back of her neck, "That's one way of putting it."

 

The kettle started to whistle and that brought a pause to the already stilted conversation.

Emma found herself with a white mug full of spiced tea in her hands and allot of questions she didn't know how to ask. Still, she had to ask them before another angry mob showed up on Regina's doorstep.

 

"So you've known Regina for a long time?"

 

The gypsy woman smiled behind her steaming cup of tea, "Yes."

 

Emma fought the urge to roll her eyes. Why had she thought this would be easy? "And since you  _ stole away _ on her ship, I assume you know Cora." 

 

She wasn't so sure the gypsy had really fooled Cora at all. Cora was smart, ruthless and was an expert manipulator. This could all be one big game.

 

Esmeralda's face darkened and her jade eyes went flat and cold. Her shoulders stiffened and she lowered her cup. "You will not say that  _ witch' _ s name in this home." Her accent was harsher and her voice was hot with unexpected fury.

 

Emma's eyebrows shot up towards her hairline. Esmeralda was obviously not a Cora fan.

 

"Esmeralda?"

 

Both women turned to the door and Emma almost dropped her tea. This was not the Regina Mills she knew. The brunette was wrapped in a purple cloak. It was too long for her and dragged at her feet, like a child wearing a parent's coat. Regina looked tousled, rough around the edges. Her always perfect hair was tangled and sticking to makeup-up smeared cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy underneath streaks of black eyeliner and mascara. Underneath the cloak she was wearing the same clothes as she had been yesterday. They were wrinkled and Emma would swear that the other woman's blue shirt was ripped and missing buttons. Her feet were bare on the hardwood floor and Emma blinked in shock when she saw the Evil Queen had painted her toe nails bright electric blue.

 

"You made tea? I thought I heard voi-"

 

Regina turned the corner fully and stopped mid-word. The change was immediate, Regina drew herself up into the stiff, military perfect, posture she maintained as mayor. Her face lost all its softness, all emotion quickly dropped away. Her mouth twisted into a sour scowl. "Miss Swan."

Even her voice, warm and content when she thought she had been talking to Esmeralda, now had an all too familiar rigidness to it. The warmth was replaced by ice.

 

Emma opened her mouth to speak, but was beaten to the proverbial punch by Esmeralda.

"Sit."

 

Emma watched, amazed, as the older woman put a hand on Regina's shoulders and sat her on one of the chairs around the table. Regina didn't even protest beyond scowling. A third ceramic white mug full of tea was immediately placed in front of the seething brunette.

 

"Do you still take milk with your tea, Little One?"

 

Emma smirked as red started to tinge Regina's cheeks. Little One? Oh this was just too good.

If looks could kill, then Emma would be dead because Regina was glaring daggers at her.

 

"It's in the fridge-"

 

At Esmeralda's blank look, Emma put her cup on the counter and walked to the refrigerator. She opened it up and chuckled at Esmeralda's gasp. If she was so impressed with the fridge, just wait until she used a toilet. A carton of half-and-half was sitting on a surprisingly bare shelf. She had always pegged Regina for one of those stock-the-pantry Moms, but whatever worked. Emma snagged it and grinned.

 

Regina was, apparently, on her best behavior with Esmeralda. She opened the crème and tilted the carton over Regina's mug. She even winked at the brunette. "Say when." She poured the crème into the ex-mayor's tea with a smirk on her face. Regina held her cup so tightly that her knuckles were blanched white.

 

"When."  

 

Emma stopped pouring and put the lid back on the crème. "You're welcome."

 

Regina only glared at her.

 

" _ Regina _ ."

 

It was the same warning-tone that Emma had heard Regina use with Henry, firm but not unkind.

 

"Thank you, Miss Swan."

 

Apparently satisfied with Regina's all but growled response, Esmeralda pulled the chair beside Regina's out and sat in it. Emma followed suit and sat across from Regina. Regina glared across the table at her. Then she lifted her mug and took a sip of her tea. For a moment, Emma watched with awe, the stress dropped from her face and a small smile shot across the brunette's face.

"Miss Swan" Great, now Esmeralda was going to call her that too, "was just here to introduce herself."

 

Emma shrugged, "I thought I should come check on the Mayor. I heard reports that you collapsed yesterday and Henry was worried."

 

Regina's eyes lit up at the mention of her son. "He was worried about me?"

 

"I have heard much about Little Henry, but have yet to see him. Where is he?"

 

The spark in Regina's eyes retreated as quickly as it had arrived. Esmeralda's honest question had unintentionally opened up a massive can of worms. Emma shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable, "He's, uh, living with me and my parents. It's complicated."

 

Esmeralda raised an eyebrow, a perfect imitation of the brow raise she had seen Regina do a million times.

 

"Miss Swan is Henry's birth-mother." Regina's voice was that of Mayor Mills: cool, crisp and clipped.

 

The table went quiet after that. It was not a comfortable silence, Emma stared at her tea, and wished it had some kind of magical answer. It was delicious, but offered no help.

 

"So I just came to make sure you were okay, and you are, so that's good."  She looked up in time to see Regina nod her head stiffly. God, why did this have to be so damn awkward?  "Between sucking up magic spells and wraith attacks you've been busy, huh."  She had meant it as a joke. A ha-ha funny joke to cut the tension.

 

"A wraith?"

 

Esmeralda's voice sounded strangled and it shook with something that sounded like terror. She dropped her cup on the table and paid no attention to the fact that it landed on its side. Tea spilled out in a puddle across the clean table and neither Esmeralda nor Regina paid it any attention. The dusky-skinned woman grabbed both of Regina's hands and flipped them over to look at the ex-mayor's palms. She was looking, Emma knew, for the strange and painful-looking Asian mark that had been burnt into Regina's hand.

"It's okay." Regina's voice was soft again, and Emma blinked at the change. She had only heard this softness enter the Evil Queen's voice when she spoke to or about Henry. "I'm okay. Nan, I'm fine."

 

Nan? Emma blinked, she knew Cora was Regina's mother and Esmeralda didn't look nearly old enough to be her mother. There was more to this situation then she was seeing.

 

"Miss Swan" Regina paused and pursed her lips tightly, like she had just sucked on a lemon, "stopped the wraith."

 

Esmeralda had yet to let Regina's hands go, but she turned her head to stare at Emma. "You saved her?"

 

Emma shrugged, "It's kind of my thing. Besides from what Henry told me, Regina saved me right back yesterday." Esmeralda's face was unreadable and Regina's was calm and carefully emotionless.  "So anyway, we're having this Welcome Home slash Welcome to Storybrooke Party at Granny's tonight, and you guys should come. I mean you can see Henry and everyone can meet Esmeralda and it would be good."

 

She had to get out of this weird, uncomfortable and frankly strange, situation. It felt like she was interrupting Regina's reunion with whoever Esmeralda was to her. This whole thing had been a bad idea. She wasn't sure why she'd invited them to the party. It had just popped out of her mouth without her thinking about it first. Not to mention that her moth-Mary Marg-Snow. Snow. Snow and David would not like this impromptu addition to the guest list. Then again, since Regina hadn't answered yet, it probably wouldn't be an issue. Why would the Queen lower herself to schlep around with the common folk of Storybrooke?

 

"Should I bring anything?"

 

Emma blinked, shocked at Regina's quiet question. She was really going to come?

 

"Ah"

 

Hadn't Ruby said it would be pot-luck? She was pretty sure she had. "Just bring whatever Henry would like best."

 

She stood up, "So I will see you guys tonight about eight?" Suddenly she didn't regret the invitation.

 

Regina nodded silently, and for Emma couldn't help but wonder what exactly what was going through the woman's head.

 

"Thanks for the tea."

She left the two women in the kitchen and let herself out of Regina's house without another word. She made it a block before shoving her hands through her blonde hair, frustrated and confused. What the hell had just happened?

 

* * *

 

 

It was 11:40, only a few minutes left before the lunch rush. It had been a red-letter morning at Granny's. Ruby would never get tired of seeing families reunited. There had been so many re-connections since the curse broke. Fathers and daughters, Jefferson and his little girl; brothers, the dwarves; and of course husbands and wives. All she had was Granny, and they hadn't been separated during the big, bad, evil curse. Watching everyone else find each other, though, that was great.

 

The only down side to Steve and Lia, Stephen and Leah she corrected herself, finding their long-lost daughter again was that Aurora's guard dog had suddenly found herself at loose ends. The Chinese woman was sitting in the same place she had been in all morning. She was staring out the window, working on what had to be her fifth cup of coffee. Her pancakes hadn't been touched since Aurora had left and Ruby had whisked the plate of cold food away at least an hour ago. The happy parents had whisked their daughter off and had barely spared a glance for the woman who had protected her for so long.

 

It was harsh, but that was how the nobility treated commoners. Some things, Ruby scowled, should have stayed in the Enchanted Forest. She didn't really know what to say to the woman. It had to be hard to watch the only person in the entire world that you knew walk away. Especially if you had sworn an oath to protect them. Ruby wrinkled her nose as she absent-mindedly wiped the counter with a cloth. Aurora was obviously in good hands, her parents were thrilled to have her back. They would help her adjust to her new reality in Storybrooke. She was back to being a pampered princess. What was Mulan supposed to do? There weren't many openings for wandering warriors in Storybrooke.

 

The bells above the door jingled but Ruby didn't bother to look up. It was 11:44, she had no doubt who had entered. Ruby recognized her scent immediately: musty books, floor polish, peaches and sunshine. Belle always came in at a quarter till noon for a glass of tea and a sandwich. She would sit at the counter and they would talk. Ruby had tried to convince herself that it wasn't the highlight of her day, and had failed miserably at it so far. She reached for the glass of tea, with lemon, that she had just poured and looked up, ready to see Belle's smile.

 

"Mulan?"

 

Belle was smiling, but not at her.

 

The brunette, dressed in the black dress with an adorably high collar and red stripes, was staring at Storybrooke's newest arrival.

 

"Belle."

Mulan smile was small, but genuine and when she stood up, Belle immediately rushed to hug her.

Ruby's fist clenched around the rag and the wolf buried deep inside her growled.

 


	8. Chapter VII: Party Time

Chapter VII

Party Time

 

It was meat-loaf day. Henry hated meat-loaf, well the school's meat-loaf at least. His mom's was so much better. Regina, he mentally corrected himself. He had been right all along, she was the Evil Queen and he had helped defeat her. Now he got to live with his real mom, the Savior, and his grandparents, Snow White and Prince Charming. They were a real family. 

 

Still, though, he couldn't help but worry a little bit about Regina. Aurora had said she had collapsed in the middle of the road. That didn't sound very Evil Queen like. It didn't sound very much like Regina at all. She was never sick, except that one time he gave her chicken pox.

Magic always came with a price, he thought as he picked at the meatloaf with his fork. What about sucking up magic? Did that come with a price too? He didn't know. There was still allot he didn't know about magic. It had looked like it hurt. He hadn't even checked to see if she was okay. She had fallen down, but he had been so worried then excited about Emma and Snow that he hadn't bothered to ask if she was okay. 

 

He didn't like the squirmy feeling he got in his stomach when he thought about it. Why should he feel guilty? Emma was his mother and Regina was the Evil Queen. Of course she was okay, it had only been a little magic. The Evil Queen had faced armies and lived to cast her curse. She had been able to go with them back to Mr. Gold's shop and had even hugged him. She was fine, and even if she wasn't, didn't she deserve to hurt? She was evil and evil never won. Evil had to be punished. Was this The Evil Queen's punishment or another trick? Either way, Emma would tell him after school.

 

Then he could put it out of his mind and focus on important things, like prince lessons and horseback riding and Operation Hydra. Operation Hydra was his new plan to find out about the new people in Storybrooke. Mulan, Aurora, Hook, Cora and the Gypsy weren't in his book. Since Hook, Cora and The Gypsy were all evil he had decided to name the operation Hydra after the evil cult in 

. He thought about the blank journal he had in his classroom desk, just waiting for his notes. He had some ideas already. Aurora was Sleeping Beauty, but where, he wondered, was Prince Philip? And how did Mulan fit into the picture? She was Chinese, like in the Disney movie, so what had she even been doing in the Enchanted Forest? 

 

He looked around the school lunchroom. Most of the kids were white and so were their parents. Not all, but most. Diversity Week was a real riot at Storybrooke Academy. Now there was a Chinese and a Gypsy woman in town. He hadn't done an official count, because he'd never really thought about it before now, but that made at least three African American families and one Middle Eastern guy, Sidney Glass was the Genie in the mirror after all. He paused over his mashed potatoes and well, technically, he thought Regina might be Latina, but it had never really come up. How Latina could someone with the last name of Mills be?

 

Then there was Cora, Regina's mother. She had never mentioned having a mother. He knew that she had to have had a mother, even Evil Queens didn't hatch from eggs, but all Regina had ever talked about was her father, Henry Senior. The man he was named after, the man whose grave Regina took flowers to every week. Of course that was probably a ruse so she could visit her evil lair underneath his tomb. Henry sighed and willed the clock to go faster so lunch would end and recess could begin. No one really talked to him a lot. They used to think he was the weird mayor's kid. He’d had friends before, but only because of the curse, so they did not count.  Now he was a Prince, son of the Savior and The Evil Queen. Half of his classmates treated him like royalty and other half didn't talk to him at all. He didn't mind, for the most part, he liked talking to adults more anyway. He would be the only kid at the party tonight. The big, important, party to welcome his mom and grandma back. It would be the perfect time to get some information on Operation Hydra.

 

* * *

 

 

Mary Margaret, or Snow White as she had been known in the Enchanted Forest, watched the youthful faces of the young students of Storybrooke Academy flood onto the playground. They frolicked with all the passion and energy of the young. It brought a smile to her face. One of the children, a boy, predictably ran right to her.

 

"Hi Grams!"

 

Henry, of course.

 

She smiled at him and reached over the chain-link fence to ruffle his hair affectionately, "Hello, Henry."

 

The young boy bounced from foot to foot, "Are you excited about tonight?"

 

She blinked, and then understood when he added, "Your party."

 

She grinned, "Absolutely. I'll see you then, you should go and play before you have to go back in."

He ran off and she leaned against the fence, pleased to see her grandson so happy.

 

"He's a sweet boy."

 

Mary Margaret turned to see Lia Weathersby. The woman walked like the queen she really was and like the queen she was, Mary Margaret nodded her head in greeting.

 

"Leah."

 

The woman, clad in a peach skirt and ruffled white top stood beside her and folded her arms across her chest. Leah was a handful of years older than she by a few years in Storybrooke time. In all their years in both realms combined, Leah was closer to Eva’s- her late mother's age than her own.

 

"Will you come back to teach now that everything has changed?"

 

Caught off guard, Mary Margret only shrugged, "I truly don't know."

 

Lia crossed her arms over her chest, "Well it is quite a step down, from Queen to school teacher with nothing in between. Regina really handed it to you with that."

 

At the mention of the Evil Queen's name, Mary Margaret scowled, "You could say that."

She didn't know Lia, or Leah, very well at all, but there was something in the way she stood. The woman was trying to lord over her. Yes, the woman had been a Queen, but Snow had fought a war for her kingdom. She had fallen from grace and clawed her way back up to the throne. Leah didn't understand how hard fought her rule had been. She didn't understand her at all if she thought she would back down. She wasn't 

Mary Margaret anymore, and she wasn't afraid of the woman who had been her boss. She was Snow White.

 

"So your daughter is in Storybrooke now. Reconnecting with her must be amazing, trust me I know what being separated from your daughter feels like." Truer words, Mary Margaret sighed, had never been spoken. She had missed her daughter. Even when she hadn't known where she was or that she was even missing, there had been an emptiness inside that could only be filled by her child.

 

"Aurora's return is a blessing especially now. Everything is changing so fast. Who knows what will happen next, it's important to hold your family close."

 

Snow turned her head ever so slightly, "I don't think 

has to change."

 

Leah's blue eyes met hers, "

wouldn't."

 

The conversation had shifted. This was not about her teaching job anymore. This was something far larger.

 

"I think." She drew herself up to her full height and turned to face Leah. "That you should be more concerned about 

then changes in Storybrooke."

 

Leah's face instantly hardened, "Is that a threat ?"

 

Snow smiled and reached out to pat Leah on the arm, "Of course not." She didn't react to Leah pulling her arm away, "I'll see you at the party tonight."

 

Leah didn't watch the woman walk away, she instead focused on the playground.

 

Had she bothered to look she would have seen wisps of violet smoke float around the corner Snow White had just walked around.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a quarter after eight and the party was in full-swing. Granny's Diner was full of the people she had missed most when she and Snow had been stranded in Fairy Tale Forest. Everyone, save for Henry, Belle and Mulan, had a stein of beer in their hand. Everyone was smiling, even the ever-sour Granny Lucas. Emma glanced at the door again, still no Regina and Esmeralda. She wasn't sure if she was annoyed or relieved. Maybe both? She was annoyed because she had gone out on a limb and invited them, the least they could do was show up. She was relieved because their presence would have made everything, and everyone, tense. 

 

She sank her hands into the oversized cardigan she had borrowed from Mary Margaret's closet. Oh yes, she was relieved, Emma decided. She definitely wasn't disappointed. Nope, not her. The sound of Henry's laughter, such a light-hearted and infectious sound, floated through the room. She should tell Leroy to take it easy with the dirty jokes around her son, but they were having so much fun that she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

 

Everyone, she grinned, was having fun. Even Mulan had apparently taken the stick out and relaxed a little. From the gist of the conversations she'd overheard Mulan and Belle had known each other back in the Enchanted Forest and their friendship had picked up right where it had left off. Belle had even convinced the woman to go shopping. Mulan looked different out of her armor, more approachable somehow. If she didn't have her sword with her, she wouldn't have been sure it was the same woman. It was amazing what a pair of faded black jeans and a white tee-shirt could do. 

 

Not that Mulan was the only one who had changed her clothes. Aurora had arrived with her newly-rediscovered parents dressed like someone who had stepped out of an E! Fashion Special. The pale blue sundress reached her knees and brought out her eyes. With her hair done in a soft waves that tumbled down her back Emma could mistake her for a super model instead of a long-lost princess. So weird.

 

Speaking of weird, Mary Margaret, Snow, was dressed in head-to-toe red and was totally rocking it. Except the fact that she was her mother, which made the whole thing freaking bizarre. Her mother, a fairytale princess or queen or whatever, was practically the same age as she was 

she looked better in a dress. Despite the confusing family connections and the new faces, the party made her feel at ease. She was home and this was her normal. When David called for a toast she couldn't help but smile and raise her glass. This was exactly what she had been looking for her entire life. Home, family, friends, stability, love.

 

The laughter and tinkling glasses almost drowned out the chime of the bell at the door. Emma turned just in time to see Regina duck into the diner with a smile on her face, "Sorry we're late." The brunette had a dish that smelled about fifty-five times better than her yet-to-be-touched tacos in her hands. Esmeralda was close behind her empty-handed but smiling.

There was a moment of shocked silence in the diner and Emma started to wish that she had kept her big mouth shut.

 

"What is

doing here?"

 

Leroy, always eloquent, grabbed the biggest knife he could find. Though his was the most noticeable reaction, everyone seemed to go tense. Damn it, this had been exactly what she had been afraid of. Emma's grip on her stein tightened. She just wanted one nice night.

 

"I invited her." Her words were snappier then she meant, but the Leroy was holding a knife and the rest of the group seemed only moments away from following suit.

 

"She brought the gypsy woman with her."

 

Mulan, who drank coffee despite the late hour, leveled her gaze at Esmeralda. She didn't seem upset, or even surprised. The warrior woman's face betrayed nothing. It was surprising, actually, to see her sitting in a booth with Belle while Aurora was at the counter with her parents. Emma had never seen so much space between the two women.

 

"Warrior." Esmeralda dipped her head towards Mulan and then turned to Aurora, "Princess."

 

Emma held back a sneer when Steven physically stepped in front of Aurora, as if to protect her from an impending attack. The look on his bearded face was sharp and a little on the angry side. Fairy tale racism at its finest, apparently.

 

Regina, seemingly undisturbed by the chaos that had erupted at their arrival, eased through the small crowd and put her dish, Emma's mouth positively watered at the Food Network-worthy lasagna, on the counter. When her hands were free she unconsciously ran a hand through her once again perfectly styled hair. Gone was the woman Emma had seen earlier, Regina was back to her sharply-dressed-to-impress mayor self.

 

"Yes, this is-"

 

"Esmeralda." Granny interrupted Regina with a single word and the room did a collective double take. Even Regina, unshakable mayoral mask in place, raised a surprised brow at the announcement.

 

"Our paths cross again, Widow Lucas." Esmeralda quirked her scared lips into a small smile. Unlike her other recent arrivals, Esmeralda had not changed her clothes. She was still dressed in a motley assortment of clothes, including the purple cloak that Regina had been wrapped in just that morning. Something, Emma would call it curiosity, burned in her brain. Just what was the situation between the former queen and the gypsy?

 

Ruby, meanwhile, choked on her beer, "You 

her?" She looked between the gypsy and her grandmother.

 

Granny shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. If Esmeralda was bothered by the multiple intense stares she made no indication of it.

 

"Your granddaughter?" Apparently she did know Granny and Ruby.

 

Granny nodded and Esmeralda flicked her green eyes over Ruby. "She has her mother in her."

 

Belle, who had quickly moved across the room, stood beside Ruby, blue eyes narrowed. Her usually kind face was set in a hard expression. She looked defensive, ready to protect Ruby. If the idea of the mild-mannered librarian protecting the town's resident badass werewolf wasn't so ludicrous, Emma would have been concerned. Belle put a hand on Ruby's bare shoulder and Emma could see the taller brunette's taut muscles relax a little.

 

"How" Snow wrapped her arm around Ruby's waist, "do 

know Ruby's mother?" There was some kind of story behind all of this, Emma could sense it. It was probably another one of those fairy tale things, she really needed to read through Henry's book again. It was like the Wikipedia of the Enchanted Forest and she could definitely use the help.

 

Emma was almost 90 percent sure that Esmeralda rolled her eyes at the question. "The Romani and the Children of the Moon are old allies. This is known."

 

Everyone, including Ruby, looked shocked at that. For once, Emma felt a little relieved, she wasn't the only one in the dark about something. Even Snow seemed taken-back by her statement. The only people who didn't look surprised were Esmerelda, Granny and Regina.

 

"She was the one who made your cloak."

 

There was only one cloak that Granny could be referring to. The classic red riding hood magic cloak that kept Ruby from turning into a werewolf every month. Emma wanted to groan when she realized what that meant. Storybrooke needed another mysterious magic maven like it needed a hurricane.

 

Regina, momentarily forgotten by most, had mouthed along to Esmeralda's last sentence as if she had heard it countless times. Emma watched her for a moment, trying to decide what the woman's angle was. For once, she didn't seem to have an ulterior motive. Which was confusing because Regina always had something going on behind the scenes. She wasn't a two-bit player, she had backup plans for her backup plans and at least three layers of bullshit between her actions and their true intentions. Maybe it was Esmeralda's magic. If the other woman was also a witch maybe they were forming some kind of crazy coven. That had to be it, Regina and magic. Now that made sense.

Henry, unconcerned by the tension in the room, walked up to Regina and peeked at the lasagna she was cutting into manageable pieces.

 

"How do you know her?"

 

His question was met with another small smile, and Emma was pretty sure she had never seen Regina smile quite so much. Then again, she was always less reserved around Henry. Her face always softened and her body language relaxed unconsciously. If there was anyone in the world who could cut through Regina's bullshit it was Henry.

 

"Esmeralda took care of me when I was a little girl. I haven't seen her in many years."

 

Oh. Emma realized, that made sense. She had been Regina's nanny. The Mary Poppins to her Jane Banks. Wait, was there a real Mary Poppins? Emma shook her head to clear it. One nagging question wouldn't go away, though. If Esmeralda cared enough about Regina to find her now, where the hell had she been while The Evil Queen had been being well, evil? Why come back now? Furthermore what kind of woman would leave a child alone with Cora?

 

"Is she evil like you?"

 

Henry's question stopped Emma's thoughts cold. She opened her mouth to reprimand him, but was beaten to the punch by Regina.

 

"Henry!"

 

There wasn't anger in the other woman's voice, though. Not even a firm parental tone. She was shocked and hurt and it showed. How many times had Henry told Regina she was evil? Too many to count, probably.

 

"Esmeralda is not evil."

 

Her voice was emphatic and left no room for argument. Emma couldn't help but notice that she 

said nothing in her own defense. Had Henry called her evil enough times that she didn't even deny it anymore?

 

"So what's the secret ingredient in this, poison?"

 

Leroy's jab, and it was definitely meant to be mean-spirited, broke the tension. It allowed the status quo, as messed up as it was, to be re-established.

 

"Red pepper flakes-gives it a little kick."

Regina had recovered, and her tone had reverted to normal. It dripped with sarcasm and regal disdain, just like everyone expected. Leroy huffed, but took his portion of lasagna with no further complaint.

 

Henry and Regina distributed the food with no further words, mother and son working together in a quiet cooperation born of years of practice. When the food was distributed Henry took his plate, that had an suspiciously large slab of lasagna on it, and sat back with Leroy and the dwarves without another glance at his mother. 

 

Conversations started up again. Archie made his way over to Esmeralda to talk. Aurora and Mulan were talking to Aurora's parents. Aurora's smile could light up a room, but Mulan looked as stiff as she had ever been. Belle, dressed in a red skirt and a flowing white shirt, was still beside Ruby, her hand had drifted down to the crook of the other woman's elbow. Ruby, lean and mean in solid black, was obviously having a serious conversation with her grandmother. . Everyone was having a good time. 

 

Emma finished her plate, and shot a quick glance over at the counter but was disappointed to find that there was no lasagna left-only tacos. She had to figure out how she could convince Regina to make some more of that. She turned to the booth that Regina had been sitting at by herself, but found it empty. She turned around and caught a slender form in a black coat silently sliding out the door.

 

Emma looked around and found Henry listening to David and Esmeralda was with Granny behind the counter where the older woman was explaining the new-fangled invention of the modern stove. No one had noticed that Regina had left, or if they had they said nothing.

 

Damn it. She put her beer down and set off after the wayward ex-mayor.


	9. Chapter VIII:  On The Outside Looking In

Chapter VIII

On The Outside Looking In

 

Author’s Note:  _ Italics  _ indicate flashbacks.

 

_ The dancers, in their opulent ball gowns and tailored trim tailcoats glided across the marble floor of the Grand Ballroom with the grace and ease that came from years of lessons and practice. The music, upbeat and cheerful, stirred her soul. She did so love music. Queen Regina also loved dancing but it would be uncivilized and therefore silently forbidden, to ask the Queen to dance before the King did so, and Leopold only danced with his daughter. He was too old, too tired, and too busy with other matters to dance, unless Snow asked it of him. He denied his precious daughter nothing. _

 

_ So she watched the others dance with an impassive face, a polite and socially acceptable mask for the masses. A Queen couldn't appear to be bored at a ball. The dancers swirled in perfect synchronization and she could hear laughter mixing with the music. High, childlike laughter-Snow's laughter. She clenched her gloved hands into fists, but the bite of bitter anger was momentary and faded quickly. She was so tired now. She couldn't even remember the last time she had laughed. No, she could, it had been three years, two months and twelve days since Daniel had died in her arms. Three years, two month and twelve days since she had last known any kind of happiness. She stared across the room at Snow dancing with Leopold. The little girl in a lacey and ruffled white dress with blue ribbons, she was the one who had caused this. She was the root of Regina's unhappiness and She. Would. Pay. _

 

_ A servant passed by her with a tray of drinks and she held out her empty goblet without a word. The young man filled her cup with the dark red spiced wine that she preferred before slipping away with a small bow. The wine was delicious and the burn of alcohol in her throat grounded her once again. It calmed her darker impulses, for a moment at least. She could feel the vein her forehead recede and some of the tension in her body eased. She let her eyes close, so she didn't have to look at the happy party-goers that swirled around her, and took another long drink. The players finished their song and the room gave them and the dancers polite applause, but Regina didn't bother. She remained perfectly still and savored the taste of sweet wine and bitter hatred on her tongue. _

 

_ The players started a new song, one of the fast jigs she had loved so much as a child, and she took another pull of the wine. Her goblet would be empty soon, but there was always another servant somewhere with a refill and no questions asked. It was one of the perks of being Queen. _

 

" _ Aren't they precious?" _

 

_ Regina's eyes snapped open. Queen Leah, one of their guests of honor, was a royal vision in rose-hued silk that had been embroidered with delicate gold. She smiled, a cold and humorless expression- a queen's polite political smile. Regina met the expression with her own royal smile and then followed Leah's eye line. Snow and Aurora, Leah's and Stephen's young princess, were twirling around on the floor together. Snow was leading the younger girl through the complicated steps with a grin on her fourteen year old face. They were two happy, giggling, little princesses without a care in the world. The anger that always bubbled in her stomach rose once more and it took the rest of the wine in her goblet to calm it so she could speak. _

 

" _ Were we ever that young?" _

 

_ Of course they had been. Mother had forced her to attend every cotillion, Yule Ball and every social event in the Kingdom. The better to catch a Prince's wandering eye, Mother had always said. She and Leah had danced at the same balls, dined at the same feasts and moved in the same circles, but they had never and would never be friends. Regina had no friends. _

 

" _ I was but you've always been so serious, Regina." _

 

_ It was hard to frolic, Regina reflected with only a hint of bitterness in her heart, when you had a mother who reacted to the smallest or even imagined social faux-paux with harsh punishment. _

 

" _ She favors you, Little Aurora, I mean." _

 

_ She didn't want to talk about the past anymore. _

 

_ Leah smiled, and for a moment it even looked genuine, and pushed one of her dainty brown curls behind the shell of her gold and diamond tiara, "She is the light of my life." _

 

_ The two queens fell silent for a moment and Regina fervently wished she had more wine. _

 

" _ And look at Snow. She favors the Queen, Eva I mean." _

 

_ The dig was anything but subtle, but Regina refused to let it affect her. It was not the first time she had heard about how much Snow looked like her dead mother. Didn't Leopold mention it every day? Didn't she know that she held no candle to the beloved Eva? _

 

" _ Speaking of mothers," Eva smiled again, "when are you going to present Leopold with an heir?" _

 

_ Regina was saved from answering by a small bundle of bright pink satin and lace. _

" _ Mommy!" The girl with big blue eyes and a missing front tooth ran towards Leah. "Did you see me?! Snow and I were dancing!" Leah bent over and hugged her daughter, laughing as she answered the girl's excited questions _

 

_ The eruption of corrosive anger in Regina's chest was almost physically painful. She caught sight of Snow working her way through the crowd of adults, towards her. Looking for the kind step-mother everyone expected her to be. She couldn't do it. She would hug the girl until her ribs cracked and her lungs were devoid of air. Then Snow turned and ran to her father and relief almost eclipsed the anger in her. No one was paying her any attention now, so it was easy to turn on her heel and left the ballroom. She spared one last glance across the room at her husband. He was deep in conversation with King Stephen and even deeper in his ale. So deep in his ale that he would not be able to stumble his way to her chambers tonight. Thank the spirits. _

 

_ She abandoned her goblet, it was useless to her without wine in it. She dropped it to the floor negligently and smirked when she heard the crystal shatter on the flagstone floor. _

 

_ The music faded behind her, and by the time she reached the courtyard, and her tree, the stink of perfume and heat of too many bodies shoved into a small space had dissipated. She hated these social farces. They were nothing but pompous shows of riches and so-called political power. If they only knew what real power looked like they would tremble at her feet. _

 

_ Rage rose in her again and she crossed the courtyard to her tree. Her dress, deep blue with silver and sapphire embroidery, was too thin to be truly comfortable in the chilly breeze but she could not fathom going back inside. Not right now. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the silhouette of the moon through the branches of her honeycrisp tree. The tree that Esmeralda and her father had planted for her when she was just a baby. The tree had been one of her few demands when she had been forced to move to the Royal Palace, her gilded cage. She would not be without this last precious piece of happier days. This was the tree that she and Esmeralda had danced under. It was where her father had read to her. It was beneath this tree that she had first kissed Daniel. She would go mad without it. _

 

" _ They're positively nauseating, aren't they? _

 

_ Regina turned sharply, gasp stuck in her chest. No one from the Ball should have wandered this far away. Then she saw who was speaking to her and knew that they had not been in the Grand Ballroom. Her elaborate dress and jacket was a deep purple, dark enough to look black in the dim courtyard. It was a pretty enough dress, but it was too wild and too wantonly cut to have been at the ball. The woman's blonde hair was a wild mane of curls and there was a twisted smirk on her face. She didn't know this woman, but the aura of power that all but crackled around her piqued Regina's interest. _

 

_ She moved closer, staff in hand, "Stephen and Leah like to think they are powerful politicos." The blonde let out a bark of sarcastic laughter, "As if they know what true power is." She chuckled, "Let me guess what's going on in there." She leaned casually on her elaborate staff, "Stephen is schmoozing Leopold, and greasing him up like a country pig. Seeking favor and power like a suckling leach. They're drinking their weight in ale and comparing the size of the cocks and armies." She let out a bitter chuckle, "And Leah is floating around like a glittering fairy-queen. Buttering people up and then cutting them down with that bitchy tongue of hers. A picture perfect queen without a drop of empathy in her entire silk-clad being. Honestly the two of them could drive a woman to homicide. Oh wait-" She grinned a little manically, "they already did." _

_ Regina pulled herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. "Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing?" And why did she find herself drawn to the obviously unbalanced woman? _

 

_ The blonde reached up and ran her fingers across one of the low-hanging almost ripe apples over their heads. "I'm someone like you, Your Majesty." _

 

_ Regina blinked, "I have no idea what you're talking about." The lie flowed so smoothly across her tongue that she almost believed it herself. _

 

_ The blonde's laughter, high and eerie, echoed through the courtyard. "Dear, we are far too powerful to play games like this." She stepped closer, invading Regina's private space. She was a few inches taller than Regina and her elaborate hair only added to her height. One purple-tinted fingernail slid down Regina's arm, "Your mother was powerful, but you have the potential to be so much more than a scheming stepmother and wicked queen. You could be truly great." _

 

_ Adrenaline and magic pumped through Regina's blood. "Who are you?" Her voice was low, raspy and held a touch of danger. Fire leapt to her fingertips. This was her newest skill, something that brought a smirk to her face. Toying with the elements of life itself was an intoxicating power and fire had always called to her. _

 

" _ So eager." _

 

_ A slender hand wrapped around her wrist, "So much power. I could use a friend like you." _

 

" _ A friend?" Regina raised a single brow, "I am a Queen. I do not have friends, only subjects." _

 

_ The woman hadn't let go of her wrist, despite the fire burning in her palm.   _ " _ But there's so much I could teach you and that you could teach me." She waved her free hand almost lazily, the air around them rippled and the fire in Regina's hand extinguished. The blonde leaned closer and when she spoke Regina could feel her glossy pink lips brush against her cheek, "You hate Leopold and his little Snowflake as much as I hate Leah and her brat. We can dance in their blood together-celebrate our victories together. It never hurts to have at least one friend in this world, Your Majesty. Especially one as powerful as me." _

 

_ Regina tilted her head ever so slightly, she was intrigued. _

 

" _ Well, I don't make friends stand out in the cold to talk. We should go to my chambers, have a glass of wine and talk about this further…" _

 

_ She trailed off because she had no idea what the woman's name was. She knew that she smelled of belladonna and vanilla, and intoxicating and deadly combination of scents, but not her name. _

_ Blonde curls tickled the tasteful amount of cleavage she showed and hot breath caressed her ear, _

" _ I'm Maleficent." _

 

_ She had heard of the woman, the sorceress who lived in a forbidden forest fortress. She was rumored to be very powerful and even more vindictive. _

 

" _ I'm sure you are." _

 

_ She turned, but did not move away yet, "Come, we have much to discuss." She let her voice drop an octave and it purred out of her throat like silk, "My friend." _

 

Things never changed, Regina mused as she watched the party around her. Another celebration that she was expected to observe, but not partake in. She was, as she had always been, a decoration. Once she had been Leopold's Queen, a pretty bauble like a ruby pendant: he could make his rounds with her on his arm glittering and bright and then cast her off without a second thought. No one paid attention to her when Leopold was otherwise occupied. She was inconsequential, a second rate queen whose existence was eclipsed by their beloved princes.

 

Snow White held court in the diner just as she always had in her father's castle. Everyone flocked to her and her perfect family, even her own son. Regina was The Evil Queen and she was there on the Savior's whim. An inconvenience to be suffered through to make their prophesied princess happy. Then when the Savior was bored with her, when Henry didn't care to see her anymore, she would be tossed away if she was lucky and executed for her many crimes if she was not.

Until then, though, she was in a strange limbo existence, tolerated but only barely. She had been here before, and had survived, she could do it again. Regina didn't need them or their party. She never had. So she left, just as she had walked out of countless feasts and balls. No one would miss her, they never did. Well, Esmeralda would, of course, but she didn't want to pull the other woman away from her conversation.

 

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out at Storybrooke's empty streets. She was alone, always. So be it, Regina sighed and tilted her head back to stare at the stars. They were the exact same stars that she had learned to navigate by as a child. The stars, Esmeralda had told her, were the same in all realms. It was a small comfort, she supposed, that she had been able to teach Henry the stars and constellations the same way Esmeralda and Daddy had taught her. Under the endless blanket of stars she felt small and inconsequential. Not a Queen, not a Mayor, she was just one woman fighting for a little boy who didn't even love her.

 

"Archie made a cake."

 

She turned around and was annoyed to hear a gasp slip out of her throat.

 

"Miss Swan."  Her voice was flat, even to her own ears. She hadn't expected anyone to follow her. She couldn't allow anyone to see her being less than regal. She would not allow anyone, especially Emma Swan, to think her weak. Her strength, her façade was all she had left. Everything else had been stripped away from her, even her son.

 

"You don't want to stay for a piece?"

 

Walk back into the diner with her tail tucked between her legs, following yet another beloved princess like a puppy? Absolutely not. She had lost many things but not her pride, never that.

"I'm fine, thank you." Gone was the snap in her voice, the sarcasm, the self-assured tone that told people she was a queen and should be respected and feared. She didn't feel like a queen right now, not even Mayor. She was just happy that she'd got to see her son, if only for a few minutes. Whether she liked it or not, and she didn't, Emma Swan had been the one to invite her. Emma Swan, who was headed back to her party.

 

"Thank you." The words felt foreign on her tongue, like a dead language that she struggled to read.

 

Miss Swan turned around and stepped back towards her, "You just said that."

 

"For inviting me-us."  It was a mark of her monumental effort to change, to control her darkness, that she was thanking the woman who had destroyed her life and taken her son.

 

"Henry liked it, and I know you would want Esmeralda to meet The Kid. I'm glad you guys got to spend some time together."

 

Some time, such a small amount of time with her little boy. A scant half hour with Henry, the baby she had sung to sleep, the toddler she had taught to walk, the sweet boy she tucked in every night. She missed Henry more than words could convey.

 

"Me too." She paused and for a moment she thought she could leave it there, but her love of Henry won out over her fierce pride.  "I'd like to see him more."

 

Begging the princess, like a lowly pauper, for more time with the son that Miss Swan had given up years before. Begging for time with the boy she'd raised for ten years like a dog begged for scraps. If the other woman allowed it, though, her bruised pride would be more than worth it. She'd do anything for Henry. 

 

"Maybe you'd consider letting him stay over sometime." Oh how she wanted her son back under her roof, back in the house that hadn't been a home until she'd brought her little seven pound, ten ounce miracle into it. "I have his room just-just waiting for him."

 

Her voice faltered on that. His room, that she had lovingly painted as a nursery and then later a toddler's room. Henry had picked the design of his current room only two years ago. Her big boy had known exactly what he wanted his room to look like. It was exactly how he'd left it but for the wrinkles in his comforter and the dried tears on his pillow from the nights she had slept in his bed.

 

"Oh, I-"The blonde hesitated, "I'm not sure that's for the best."

 

First came pain, such sharp and jagged pain in her heart and soul. Then anger rose in her, hot and familiar. How dare this woman keep her from Henry? This woman who hadn't even wanted him. The woman who'd given birth to him in a jail cell then tossed him away. Then a numbness settled in her chest. This was her reality now, Miss Swan was Henry's mother, whether she deserved to be or not.

 

"Because you know so much about parenting in the five minutes you've been with him." More than five minutes, it had been months of stealing Henry slowly with treats and adventures while she had been trying to be a good mother to him. She had been the one who had checked his homework and made sure he brushed his teeth, who had to discipline him when he skipped school. 

 

"Talk to your  _ charming  _ father David. At least he took care of him while you were away." Oh how she hated that. Her heart had broken, shattered in her chest once again, when Henry had walked away with his newly discovered grandfather. She had stolen his other grandfather from him, David was the only grandfather he would ever know. Daddy would never get to meet Henry, and that was her fault. That had been her price to pay.

 

"Like I did" Her anger was getting the better of her, crackling in her soul and entering her voice making her accusations sharp and her tone as hard as granite, "during the ten years you were away the first time." The best ten years of her entire existence.

 

"Okay" Emma's voice was low and her green eyes sparked, "thanks for coming." She turned around and Regina knew, down to her bones, that blonde would never allow her to see Henry now.

 

Damn her temper. She was trying to change, trying to be a better person. Why did everything have to be so hard? Why did the other woman have to get to her so easily? Why did every word have to get under Regina's skin? Why did it have to hurt so damn much to see her son's birth mother every day?

 

"No, wait." It couldn't end like this. She wouldn't let her chance at being Henry's mother again slip through her fingers so easily.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

How many people had heard her say that? Henry, of course, she had told him that over and over. Esmeralda, Daddy, her Mother. Queens do not apologize, her mother had told her. She was not a queen anymore, just a desperate mother. She even took a step forwards. She pulled her hands out of her coat pocket because she needed to move them, to use her hands to help make her point. Her mother had always hated that she spoke with her hands, a nasty peasant's habit that her father had instilled in her she'd said, but when she was nervous she could not stop herself. 

She tried, though, she clenched her shaking fists at her sides.

 

"Em-I-I" She was stuttering like an idiot, "I'm sorry." She said it again. She'd apologized twice to her now. "I shouldn't have snapped at you." Compared to her days as The Evil Queen, or even as Storybrooke's mayor, this had been a mild outburst. Still, though, she was sorry and she needed the other woman to know that. She needed Emma Swan to see that she was changing, for the better. "Will you accept my apology?"

 

* * *

 

 

Emma stood, silent for a moment, hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans.

She didn't know this Regina. It was yet another side to the brunette. Regina Mills had to be the most complicated person in the damn world, in any world. She was one of those impossibly beautiful puzzles with five-thousand tiny pieces. She looked so sad. Emma had stepped outside to catch her before she left, but she hadn't expected to see Regina like that. She was staring up at the sky, arms wrapped around her, alone in front of a diner full of people, in a town full of people. Regina stood alone, and for some reason she couldn't understand, Emma couldn't tolerate it anymore.

 

"Archie made a cake."  Lame. Oh so lame.

 

She was offering the Evil Queen cake. She didn't know what to do with this woman anymore. This woman who sucked up evil curses and painted her toenails bright colors, who asked for her son to stay over in his room.

 

"I-"She didn't know what to do, but she couldn't let Henry just wander back into Regina's life with a smile and a half-hearted promise of good behavior. Regina was still dangerous and Emma didn't trust Esmeralda. Not because of the gypsy nonsense either, there were too many questions and not enough answers about the woman.  "I'm not sure that's for the best."

 

If she'd have blinked, she would have missed it: the utter devastation in Regina's eyes.

 

Then the woman snapped to life, the familiar anger and snide tone; this Regina she knew. This was the Regina that had punched her in the cemetery and challenged her from across the marble desk in her office. Here was the Evil Queen, which was why she couldn't let Henry go back to 108 Mifflin.

 

She turned to leave the woman, she had family and friends to get back to.

 

"I'm sorry."

Damn it. Emma turned around again, frustrated and confused. Regina Mills didn't apologize, but here she was, begging for her to accept an apology.

 

Maybe she had drank a little too much, because she wasn't sure this was actually happening.

She hadn't expected this. Emma could hardly believe her ears. Regina Mills, Evil Queen, Mayor and major pain in her ass, was apologizing, to her. She sounded so damn sincere, she was sincere, Emma could feel that the woman was telling the truth.

 

"Okay." Her words were barely a whisper.

 

If Regina truly wanted to change, fighting with her at every turn wasn't going to help.

 

"You're right."

 

Regina blinked and slid her hands back into her coat pockets.

 

"I don't know much about being a good mom and you did take care of Henry by yourself for ten years. I mean, you know what, thank you. For that, for taking care of Henry."

 

She had, Emma knew, taken good care of Henry. Maybe she wasn't Mother of the Year, but she had given him a safe, stable home, support, care, love. No matter how awkward and suffocating it had been, Regina loved Henry.

 

"I-"Regina shrugged, "Henry is the best thing in my life. He's the only good thing I've  _ ever _ done."

 

Finally, Emma nodded, something they could agree on. She had done some messed up things in her life but having Henry, even if she hadn't been able to keep him, was the best thing she'd ever done.

 

"So maybe it's not the best idea, but I think him spending more time with you would be good. Maybe not overnight, not yet, but you're his mother too."

 

Regina only nodded silently. Had she really just left the mouthy mayor speechless?

 

"And I mean with Cora in town having you close to Henry is a good idea-for his safety I mean."

 

It was an instant change. It started with her eyes-the dark chocolate brown eyes went wide. Then her face lost its healthy olive tone, it went very pale very fast. "Wh-what?"

 

Her voice shook, Emma hadn't heard her voice like that since Henry had been in the hospital. With that off-hand comment Emma learned two very important things. One, Esmeralda had not told Regina how she had arrived in Storybrooke and two. Emma felt a cold splash of fear in her belly. Two, Regina Mills, bad ass Evil Queen, was terrified of her own mother.

"My mother" Regina reached out and rested her palm on the nearby table-as if she was having problems standing. "is here, in Storybrooke?"

 

Emma stepped closer, a little worried now. She had seen this reaction in people before, but not in a very long time. This instant and overwhelming fear was familiar, too familiar. This was the same fear she had seen on countless faces and no matter how old you got, the fear remained. This was the face of an abused child.

 

"Regina."

 

She had known that Cora was a piece of work, but this was something else entirely.

She rested a hand on Regina's shoulder, "It's going to be okay."

 

The flesh underneath her hand stiffened and Regina shrugged it away.

 

"You have no idea what she was capable of. If she knew about Henry." Regina's shudder conveyed more than words could.

 

Well shit. Emma sighed, she had better tell her now.

 

"About that, she might already kind of know about Henry."

 

"Oh God." Regina's voice was a raspy whisper and Emma knew that was from terror. The Evil Queen was terrified. Oh double shit, what had she done?

 

"I didn't know, Regina!" She threw up her hands and started to pace, "I mean I didn't get a damn visitor's guide to Fairy Tale Forest Land. No one told me that your mother is a fucking sociopath who rips out hearts left right and sideways. I mean, seriously?  We were in a damn hole with no way out and she was this lady in there with us. She gave me this sob-story about her daughter being so freaking bad and I don't know we'd been kind of at each other's throats and it made sense at the time. Then Snow woke up and gave me the 411 on Mommy Dearest. She overheard me telling Snow to play it cool and Henry's name just popped out. I didn't know!"

 

Regina had to understand how bad she felt, how monumentally stupid she had been. She got it, she understood. Emma Swan had, once again, fucked up big time.

 

"Then poof she was Lancelot. Did you know that fucking Lancelot was real? He is. Apparently the whole damn King Arthur thing is true. It's like eleventh grade English is back to bite me in the damn ass." She was rambling now, but couldn't stop.

 

"Then we're running and she summons zombies. Fucking zombies to chase us. Then there's Hook, and by the way he's a bastard.  Like Jack Sparrow wouldn’t even like him. I climbed up a beanstalk, like Jack from the story, and there was a literal giant. A giant, fee-fi-fo-fum giant in a castle in the clouds. All I wanted to do was get  _ home _ . Your batshit insane mother tried to kill us multiple times and then we were in my childhood nursery and so close to being home then fire and fighting happened. She took Aurora's heart, or Hook did, I'm a little fuzzy on that. We were locked in some creepy prison and I used a scroll full of my name written in magic ink to free us. Then boom we're fighting Cora and she shoved her hand into my chest."

 

"She took your heart?"  Regina's voice cracked, and she closed the gap between them, putting herself way into Emma's personal space. "She has your heart and you allowed yourself to be near to Henry? Do you know what she could make you do? You have  _ no idea _ what she is truly capable of!" Regina's eyes were wide with fear, her voice shook and her hands fluttered in the air like she wanted to grab Emma and shake her.

 

Emma grabbed Regina's wrists and held them still. "She tried. It wouldn't come out. It was, like, stuck in my chest."

 

She hadn't thought it was such a big deal, but Regina's face, mouth open in amazement, told her that it probably was.

 

"She started rambling about love being weakness and I told her that love was strength and then she was blown backwards. I set myself to stun or something. Then we hopped in the portal and climbed out of the well. According to Aurora and Mulan, Hook and Cora sailed here through another portal. Aurora and Mulan stole away on the ship with your Esmeralda's help."

 

She ached to shove her fingers through her hair, but refused to let Regina's wrists free. God only knew what the woman would do if she could move her hands. She'd already been the target of one of Regina Mill's punches and didn't particularly want to go through that again. "And that's the gist of Emma and Snow's Bogus Adventure."

 

"She couldn't take your heart?" Regina's voice was steady but quiet. It was like she couldn't believe what Emma was telling her.

 

Emma still had Regina's wrists in her heads so she brought one of Regina's hands to her chest. "Nope still here, still beating and doing whatever else a heart is supposed to do." Beating a little faster than normal, actually. "No one is going to hurt Henry. I'm the Savior and you're the Evil Queen, who the hell has a chance against us?"

 

Regina pulled away, wrenching herself out of Emma's grasp, "My mother." She walked away from Emma, four steps, then stopped. Her back was to Emma but her words were clear, "She has magic and is ruthless. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants." Emma watched the woman before her transform yet again. Her spine stiffened and she could see Regina's shoulders square beneath her coat.

 

"And what does she want, Regina?"

The brunette turned to the side so Emma could see the shadows play on one side of her face, "Me. Miss Swan, she wants me and by extension Henry."

 

There was no way in Heaven, Hell, The Enchanted Forests, Storybrooke or anywhere in between, that Cora was going to lay a hand on Henry or his mother.

 

"Not happening."

 

Regina turned to face her again, dark hair flipping as she moved, "And what can you do to stop her? I absorbed our last and best defense against her yesterday. That magic, all that fairy dust, is gone now. What are you going to do, threaten her with a  _ chainsaw _ ? She's the Queen of Hearts, even Gold fears her power. Does that tell you anything?" The mayor was back, the spitfire woman who fought Emma at every turn about everything. This was the Regina they needed right now. The fighter, the woman who wouldn't quit even if everything was stacked against her.

 

"That this Gold is a fool."

 

Both Emma and Regina turned to see Esmeralda standing just outside the door of Granny's. Neither were sure how long the other woman had been there.

 

"Esmeralda, please tell Miss Swan-"

 

"Emma." She was damn tired of the formal bull crap that Regina hid behind. "My name is Emma."

 

"Fine," Regina blew out a frustrated breath, "Tell  _ Emma _ how powerful Mother is. She won't listen to me."

 

The Romani woman walked towards them, empty lasagna dish in her hands, "She is powerful, this is known."

 

Regina looked smug, like she had won some sort of victory.

 

"But you are more powerful than she could ever imagine."

 

That left Regina speechless and Emma wanted to groan. That's exactly what she needed, Regina Mills on a power-trip.

 

"Why didn't you tell me she was here? I could have done something."

 

From the way Regina's voice wavered on something, she had no clue what the something could have been. Emma knew the feeling though. Doing something was always better than doing nothing.

 

"I was going to tell you when you had fully recovered."

 

Fully recovered? What was that supposed to mean? Emma did not like the sound of that.

 

"It is unimportant. Are you ready to leave?"

 

Regina nodded wordlessly and Esmeralda crossed the patio to stand at the brunette's side.

 

"Thank you for inviting us, Emma Swan. It was an  _ enlightening _ evening."

Emma watched both women walk away, and had no idea what to think about either of them.

 

* * *

  
  


High above Granny's diner, perched on one of Storybrooke's rooftops, Hook watched the scene play out through his spy glass. He lowered it and shrugged, "Well, is she broken?"

Regina, the Evil Queen, didn't look broken to him, but looks could be deceiving. Cora stood beside him, her blue dress and cloak rippling in the wind. He had sneaked a glance at her more than once while they'd watched the dramatic little scene play out before them. She, unlike himself, apparently didn't need a spyglass. Her face had flickered between unimpressed boredom to mild amusement, but had made no comments. He wasn't sure what the conversation had been about, but he did have a guess at why Emma Swan hadn't responded to his advances.

 

"Not yet." Cora's mouth pulled into a smirk. "Esmeralda's presence has changed my plan a little bit."

 

"Oh really?" If the gypsy made things difficult why had they let her tag along in the first place? There was more to this than what Cora was telling him.

 

She nodded, "Regina has to lose everything and the farther she falls the easier it will be to bring her back into my arms."

 

He buffed his hook on his shirt, "So you want to string her along a bit, toy with her. Give the puppy a minute with the bone two before wrenching it away."

 

Cora didn't answer but her face, and her cold smile, told him all he needed to know.


	10. Chapter IX: Agree to Disagree

 

Chapter IX

Agree To Disagree

 

"And Katherine and Jim, or you'd remember them better as Princess Abigail and Sir Frederick, live over at 44 Third Street. Katherine is taking law courses online and she's determined to become Storybrooke's first truely elected District Attorney."

 

Aurora blinked, "I'm sorry, but I only understood about half of what you just said."

 

Ruby, Belle and Snow looked between each other and then, much to Aurora's embarrassment, started to laugh. Belle regained her composure first. "Trust me it gets easier. I don't have cursed memories either. Some days can be a little confusing, but you catch on quickly. Everyone here is so kind and helpful."

 

"Well" Snow's eyes cut to the booth that Regina had recently vacated, " _ most _ people are."

 

"So." Ruby's slightly over-the-top cheerful voice cut through Snow's momentary gloom, "What are you planning to do now, Mulan?"

 

Belle, hand still resting comfortably in the crook of Ruby's elbow turned and the Warrior shifted from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable with the sudden scrutiny. Her hands were locked behind her, folded stiffly at the small of her back. "I have sworn an oath to Prince Phillip to protect Princess Aurora."

 

"Well" Leah spoke for the first time, "that certainly is not necessary anymore. Her father and I can provide Aurora" She slipped her arm around her daughter's waist, "everything she could possibly need or want." When the two women stood so close it was impossible to deny their shared blood. From the shape of their faces, to their coloring and even their body-shape, Aurora was almost a perfect replica of Leah.

 

Snow felt a little jealous that mother and daughter shared so much when she could see so little of herself in Emma.

 

Ruby, too, felt a pang of guilt, she too had looked like her mother. Even Esmeralda had said as much. Only Anita was not around to hug her. She had died, impaled on a pike, cursing her daughter with her last breaths.

 

Belle smiled but keenly missed her own mother, who had died of a fever when she had been three years old.

 

Mulan said nothing, she did not trust herself to speak. She had been neatly and bloodlessly dismissed. Shame filled her entire being. This was the second time she had been dismissed from service, and this time cut just as deeply as the last had. If her family had not disowned her years before she would have felt the crushing guilt of knowing that she had brought further shame to her ancestors.

 

"But Mother." Aurora hugged Leah back and smiled, "Mulan and I still have to rescue Phillip's soul."

 

Mulan smiled and her spirit rose again like a reawakened phoenix. She still had a quest, a duty to fulfill. She was not in service to this royal family, she was sworn to Prince Phillip and his rescue. Aurora had not forgotten that, or her.

 

"Perhaps I can help." Belle moved away from Ruby and touched Mulan's tee-shirt clad shoulder, "I helped rescue Phillip the first time, after all."

 

"What?"

 

The entire group of women refocused their attention on Belle.

 

"You helped rescue a Prince?" Ruby looked her up and down, obviously shocked.

 

Mulan smiled for the first time since she had arrived at the party. "She is a clever warrior. If not for her, Phillip would still be lost."

 

"I wouldn't call myself a warrior, I almost cut my own arm off with that sword. I do much better with books."

 

Mulan, usually humorless, threw her head and laughed.

 

Aurora almost dropped her glass of Coke, the drink Henry had recommended her when she 

expressed her distaste for beer, at the sound. She had never heard the other woman laugh. It was a husky, rough and melodious sound, not the giggles of a teenager or the proper and understated titter of a Lady, a real soldier's spontaneous and whole-hearted laugh.

 

"Perhaps."

 

Belle, gracious despite the teasing, rolled her eyes, "Admit it, my books helped."

 

Mulan's face returned to its usual stoic blankness, "They did and they may again."

 

"Well magical quests are great, but they pay crap." Ruby leaned back against the counter and crossed her long legs at the ankle. "And there aren't a lot of openings for sword swinging heroes in Storybrooke."

 

Leah nodded, "Yes and I'm sure Granny won't take good intentions for rent."

 

Snow and Aurora both opened their mouths to protest, but Mulan quietly beat them to the verbal punch.

 

"The Lucas Family has been very generous to me, and I will not continue to abuse their hospitality. I will retire to the forest to camp until I can secure lodgings."

 

"Absolutely not!"

 

Both Belle and Aurora's outraged voices rose above the Diner's many conversations.

 

"Mother, there must be-"

 

Aurora's protests were cut off by Belle's calm voice.

 

"You are not going to camp in the middle of forest in Maine, Mulan. You're staying with me. I have an apartment above the library."

 

"The Hell!" Ruby pushed off of the counter, "Belle you don't even get paid for all that crap you do in the library, you can't just open up your home to some free-loader!"

 

"You don't get paid?"

 

"Free loader?!"

 

"Well."

 

Snow, Aurora and Leah's reactions were faster and louder but it was Belle's single word that caught Ruby's attention.

 

"Crap?"

 

Belle's blue eyes narrowed, "I beg your pardon, Ruby Lucas, but I happen to  _ like _ my work at the library. It may not be the most important job in Storybrooke but it makes me  _ happy _ ." She crossed her arms and glared at the taller brunette, "And I do get paid, thank you very much."

 

"I wouldn't call getting an allowance from the Dark One a paycheck, Miss French."

 

Leah curled her lip in disgust, "You're practically a kept woman."

 

"Leah!"  Snow sounded positively scandalized.

"If I do get an allowance, Mrs. Weathersby, so do you." Belle met the former queen with an equal amount of disdain in her voice. "Head Librarian is a municipal position.  _ Regina Mills _ signs my checks and sets my budget the same way she does  _ yours _ ." Belle took a long drink of her iced tea, "And after twenty-eight years of being closed for repairs the library has a  _ very healthy  _ budget to work with."

 

"Repairs. Now that's an interesting way to say there's a dragon in the basement."

 

Ruby's words, flippant and casual, made both Aurora and Leah pale. Aurora put her half-full glass of cola on the counter before it slipped from her shaking hand, "A dragon? You mean that Maleficent is here?"

 

Despite the earlier bickering, Mulan was at Aurora's side in a heartbeat, hand already on her sword.

 

"Emma killed the dragon."  Snow's words were quick and quiet, "Before the curse broke. Maleficent can't hurt anyone anymore."

 

"Well that's one witch down" Leah's voice dropped an octave and her face tightened into a scowl, "and one to go."

 

"Things look like they're getting heated over there."

 

David sipped his beer and shifted uncomfortably. Snow's face was turning red, which was rare.

 

"They're women, James, they're probably arguing about s _ hoes _ ."

 

Steve Weathersby, former King, was seated comfortably on a stool, his elbow negligently propped on the counter only inches away from Emma's plate of tacos.

 

"Though it is good to see Aurora and Leah making friends."

 

David nodded and wondered if he should correct the other man. He was not, nor had he ever wanted to be James. He had shed that name with the curse and didn't really want it back. "Friends? They don't look like they're going to braid each other's hair."

 

He wondered if he should step over there. He was a man, though, and if he had learned anything from attending balls at Snow's side, it was that too many women made for a sticky situation for him. Women were complicated, tricky creatures. They had too many wiles and games, too many ways to trap you into saying or doing something you would only get in trouble for later. Still, he was the law and if things escalated.

 

"Oh relax, Sheriff."

 

David drained his beer, "Emma's the Sheriff. I was just filling in while she was gone. It was the least I could do. Now that she's back the job is hers again, we elected her after all."

 

Stephen regarded him regally, "That was before, when were cursed. She's a princess, royalty, James. You don't mean to let her continue to do that peasant's job do you?"

 

David wished he were anywhere else, at all. "Emma's a grown woman and makes her own decisions."

 

Stephen chuckled into his drink, "That's a trait of the White Women. Eva and Snow had Leopold wrapped around their little fingers. It looks like your Emma takes after her mother and grandmother in that respect." He clapped David on the shoulder, "Oh don't get upset, James, I spoil my girls too. Kings without sons have to be a little soft-hearted." He held up his stein and two fingers, and looked around for Granny for a refill. "I'm only glad Leopold's heart hardened before he wedded and bedded Regina. God only knows what would have happened if he'd let that  _ witch _ have the freedom that Eva did. We would have all been rotting heartless corpses before you would have been old enough to shave."

 

David looked around, almost desperate for an excuse to step away from Stephen. He saw his last possible chance, Emma, slip out the door. Damn.

 

"Yeah well, we beat her once and if she wants to cause trouble we can do it again."

 

Stephen folded his arms over his chest and raised a raven brow, "You beat her? We were cursed for twenty-eight years, that hardly feels like a victory. The next time Regina gets frisky maybe someone else should lead the charge."

 

What was that supposed to mean? He hadn't been raised around politics and Kings, but he knew a challenge when he heard one.

 

"Oh I think Snow, Emma and I can handle Regina."

 

Stephen only grunted in reply.

 

* * *

 

 

"And this electricity is a magic energy that makes all these lights stay on  _ and _ keeps the food fresh  _ and  _ plays the music?"

 

This realm was a truly unique and powerful place.

 

"It's definitely better than tallow candles, hunting vermin and listening to talentless twerps pluck at mandolins."

 

Archie chuckled at Granny's joke.

 

"There are allot of things in this realm that make life easier, it's something we've all become used to over the years. I hadn't considered how odd it would seem without cursed memories. You should really talk to Belle, she's adjusted very well to life in Storybrooke."

 

Archie pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. "Though she was a princess. I suppose it's very different for a Romani."

 

Esmeralda gave the redheaded man a smile. He was one of the few people that she had met, in any realm, that paid her people enough respect to refer to them by their proper name. "I have traveled many realms, and they are all strange, though I must admit this town that My Nightingale made is certainly the strangest."

 

Widow, called Granny here, Lucas choked on her beer. "Regina,  _ Regina Mills _ , is your Little Nightingale?"

 

They had spoken of their beloved girls, Granny of Red and she of her Nightingale, years ago while she had camped in the woods near the cottage sewing the magical red cloak she had sold to the other woman.

 

A small smile crossed her face, "Since she was a babe-in-arms."

 

"So" Archie smiled, "you really did help raise her and now you've come back into her life. It must take a lot of strength and love to stay by hers side after everything that has happened."

 

This man, Esmeralda decided, knew how to use words. He was not unkind, but he probed with careful questions and clever insights.

 

"Even the gravest mistakes and the most damaged souls can be brought back into balance with enough good works and love."

 

Archie plucked his glasses off his face and cleaned them on his sweater, "You're talking about The Old Ways. I haven't even thought of them since I was a child."

 

"You're wrong."

 

Little Henry climbed up onto a nearby stool and sipped his root beer with a scowl on his face. "She can't ever make up for everything she's done. No matter what she does. She'll always be  _ evil _ ."

Esmeralda looked around and was relieved to see that Regina was not in the room to hear Little Henry say such a thing.

 

"There is no such thing as a good or evil person, Little Henry, only good and evil actions."

 

Henry rolled his eyes, "She's the  _ Evil Queen _ ."

 

Anger started to rise in Esmeralda and she bit the inside of her cheek to remind her to keep it under control. He was just a boy, a very young boy who had only barely started on his life's journey.

 

"She's your mother."

 

"No she's not."

 

Archie put his hand on the boy's shoulder, "You don't mean that, Henry."

 

"Yes I do."

 

Anger boiled up in Esmeralda's chest. This was the son her Little One had spoken of so softly? This was why her eyes had showed such sadness. If there was one thing Regina had ever wanted, since the time she was old enough to cradle a doll, it was to be a mother. Little Henry was confused, Esmeralda reminded herself. He had found himself in a very unusual situation and his mother had done many horrible things.

 

"There is much you do not understand, Little Henry."

 

She smiled softly at the boy. He reminded her of Regina. She had gone through a stage very like this. She had been bright, quick and far too clever for her own good. She had thought herself to be smarter than everyone. The world was so small to children. Esmeralda reached out to smooth Henry's hair and the boy jerked away.

 

"My name is Henry, there's nothing little about me."

 

She lowered her hand and refused to show her disappointment at his reaction to her. "Henry is the name I called your grandfather, therefore you cannot be Henry. You are Little Henry."

 

"My grandfather's name is David. That other Henry is just  _ Regina's _ dead father. He doesn't mean anything to me."

 

A surge of pain cut through her. Oh Henry, she felt tears burn in her eyes, he doesn't mean it. Her sadness and anger curled around her heart and for a moment the bitterness overwhelmed her.

" _ Do not _ speak ill of your ancestors,  _ Little Boy _ ." Her voice was cold and it cracked like a whip. Though she did not realize it, the entire Diner recognized the tone as Regina's mayoral voice.

 

"Hey!" David Nolan, Prince Charming, stepped over. "That's my grandson you're talking to, Gypsy."

 

Her scared lips turned down in a frown, "Yes. His manners must be a reflection of  _ poor breeding _ because I  _ know _ his mother taught him better because I taught her  _ respect _ ."

 

"Hey you can't talk to him like that, he's a prince!"

 

David settled his hand on Henry's shoulder and smiled, "Gypsies aren't civilized enough to know any better, Henry. They don't respect leaders because they don't have their own."

 

His ignorance and his off-the-cuff way of sharing it with an impressionable little boy made her blood boil.

 

"I see no  _ prince _ here. Only a jumped up shepherd boy given a dead man's name and a life that was not his own."

 

The only sound in the room was Snow's gasp.

 

"I knew you had to be evil."

 

Henry stood up and wrapped his arms around David's waist. "You're no better than  _ she _ is."

 

He is but a boy, Esmeralda reminded herself. She had dealt with sorcerers, kings, wizards, and men who thought they were Gods. She could deal with an ungrateful, spoiled boy who spoke of things he couldn't possibly understand.

 

"One who has taken so few steps on his own journey should not speak on the paths of others."

 

Snow had, during the argument, walked across the room to join her husband and grandson.

"And a barefoot barbarian shouldn't speak to her  _ betters _ like that."

 

Esmeralda did not lower her eyes or move an inch. She stared down the couple and the boy. She knew that she should not have lost her temper, but these people would have driven The Beloved Light herself to fall, or gleefully leap, from grace.

 

"No one person can stand above another. We are all one family descended from the same source." She plucked the white dish, Regina had called it ceramic but it looked like no ceramic she'd seen before, from the counter. "I will see my own way out." She turned towards the door, "It was good to see you again, Eugenia, and to meet you, Archie."

Then she walked, head held high and shoulders stiff, out of the door.

 

She entered the dark courtyard, fury burning in her heart, and saw something she did not expect to see. It was, in fact, one of the very last things she had expected to see:  Her Nightingale was in the arms of Emma Swan.

 

"She couldn't take your heart?"

 

Ah, Esmeralda finally understood. Cora had tried to take Emma Swan's heart.

 

"Nope still here, still beating and doing whatever else a heart is supposed to do."

 

And she had failed, a first for the Queen of Hearts.

 

"No one is going to hurt Henry. I'm the Savior and you're the Evil Queen, who the hell has a chance against us?"

 

They called Emma Swan The Savior? Esmeralda's eyebrow rose at that. Could it really be so simple? After all her years of searching, could this really be her answer?

 

Then her Little One pulled away, her voice dripped with fear as she spoke of Cora, the woman who was supposed to be her mother. The heartless beast that had happily helped turn her Little Nightingale to her dark path.

 

She's the Queen of Hearts, even Gold fears her power. Does that tell you anything?"

Had these people really worn her Little One down so far? This was the woman who had brought an entire realm to its knees and she no longer had confidence in herself. Though she vehemently hated what Regina had done, she could not deny that it had taken power. More power than the Dark One himself had been able to gather.

 

"That this Gold is a fool."

 

She was beginning to think that many people of Storybrooke were fools.

 

Both women, Emma Swan and Her Little Nightingale, turned to face her. They bickered about the blonde's name for a moment before Regina capitulated and called the White Princess by her given name, Emma.

 

It had been Miss Swan that morning and under the dark night sky it was Emma. Interesting.

 

"Tell Emma how powerful Mother is."

 

Cora was powerful, that was known, but it was time that Her Nightingale recognized her own potential.

 

"-but you are more powerful than she ever imagined."

 

That was known. She had always felt the power of magic in Regina. She had felt the surge of dark energy in her the very first time she had touched the girl.

 

Then Regina, voice as wobbly as it had ever been as a child, asked why she hadn't shared the news about Cora's arrival in Storybrooke. Why hadn't she told Regina that her mother had returned to her life? She wasn't sure herself. Perhaps it was because she had wanted just a few days with the girl she loved with all her heart without the shadow of Cora Mills darkening their time. Perhaps she hadn't said because she was naive enough to think that she could protect her like she had when Regina had been a child. Perhaps it was because she had found Her Little Nightingale on death's door and had desperately wanted her to be well before she told her that the cruel woman that had haunted her childhood nightmares was back.

 

"I was going to tell you when you had fully recovered."

 

She wasn't recovered yet. It took more than a day to recover from being at the brink of death. Besides, her Little Nightingale had not been taking proper care of herself. She was too thin, she barely ate enough to keep her namesake alive. There was too much alcohol in her home and not enough food. There was too much sadness and shadow in her life and not enough smiles and light.

 

"It is unimportant." It wasn't, but she refused to talk about it when they were still close to the Diner full of fools and idiots. "Are you ready to leave?" They were leaving no matter if she was ready or not. This place and these people were not good for Regina and she was not going to let her Little One linger in the toxic environment they'd found themselves in.

 

She paused when she reached Regina's side, and looked back at Emma Swan. She could not help but think of the past and of her quest. She could not help but remember a very old story, a child's tale of a cursed princess and a sad queen.

 

"Thank you for inviting us, Emma Swan. It was an  _ enlightening _ evening."

 

To say the least. She wrapped her arm around her Little One's shoulders, unsure if she was comforting herself or Regina with the movement, and lead the woman she loved more than anything other person in any world, towards her home.

 

When Regina had been a child simple words of comfort had always been enough to calm her. Esmeralda didn't have enough words to make up for the ugly hate, anger and negativity that Regina dealt with every day so she simply kissed the woman's temple as they walked. That would have to be enough for now.

  
She felt eyes on her as they walked but chose to ignore Cora's glare and the cold wind that it rode on.


	11. Chapter X:  The After Party

  
  


Chapter X

The After Party

 

The party ended abruptly after Esmeralda and Prince David exchanged words. Mulan did not know much about the politics or culture of Storybrooke, but she did know one thing. Had she ever spoke to an adult as Henry Mills did when she had been ten, she would not have survived to become an adult. She kept this thought to herself, though.

 

Emma Swan returned to the party but was lost in her own thoughts and paid little attention to the tense faces or jangling nerves in the room. She bid her goodbyes and she, her parents and her son left the Diner. The dwarves, or at least a handful of them decided to continue their festivities at The Rabbit Hole. When she asked, Belle told her it was the local tavern. Belle was also ready to go, though she had been since her argument with Ruby Lucas. She was still glaring at the tall brunette from across the room. Mulan would happily run into battle naked armed only with a table knife to avoid being drawn into an argument between two women.

 

A soft hand touched her arm and she turned to see Aurora. The Princess smiled at her and Mulan inclined her head.  "It's nice that your friend is being so kind." Aurora grasped her own elbows and turned to look at her parents for a moment, "but should it not work out, you are always welcome at my home." 

 

Mulan could see Aurora's parents out of the corner of her eye and from their facial expressions she doubted that what Aurora was saying was true. "It isn't a castle, but a blue manor house on Forest Avenue. There is a lovely garden in the front." Though she was listening to Aurora, her attention was on the woman's mother. She and the former Queen were staring at each other over Aurora's shoulder. The woman's expression made it very clear that an army of ogres would be more welcome in her home.

 

"Mulan?"

 

Soft hands captured her calloused ones, slender tapered fingers tangled with hers. She refocused on the woman in front of her and felt her lips tug into a small smile.

 

"We're still a team, right? You and I."

 

Ah, Prince Phillip's rescue, their quest. It had, for a brief moment, slipped her mind.

 

"Of course, Princess."

 

Aurora's smile, full and true, made Mulan lose her breath for a moment. Their hands parted and it felt like her body's warmth fled when her princess withdrew. No, Mulan sternly reminded herself, Phillip's princess. Her friend, her Lord Prince, the reason for her quest. Aurora had always and would always belong to Phillip and she was sworn to reunite them. They were each other's True Loves and she was a fool.

 

"Good night, Princess."

 

She watched Aurora join her parents and then disappear through the door. Though it was insanity, betrayal and an impossibility, Mulan felt a piece of her heart go with her.

 

"Are you ready to go?" Belle smiled, a somewhat sad and resigned expression, at her.

 

"Indeed."

 

* * *

 

 

The tip of the Cuban cigar glowed in the dark room like a red-hot cherry.

 

"It sounds like it was a lively party. A pity I wasn't invited." Albert Spencer, or King George as he preferred to be addressed, sat in a plush wingback chair by the roaring fireplace.

 

"Well, everyone took you off their e-vite list when you murdered that mouse." A black gloved hand swirled brandy around a crystal snifter, "Not that you were popular with _ that _ crowd in the old days either. Didn't you try to execute that pretender you were trying to pass off as James at least twice?" Alexander Emery looked very different than his former self. His long golden curls had been cut short and rigidly gelled into submission. He was clean-shaven and dressed in a starched white oxford shirt. The only connection to his former self was the single glove he wore. The return of magic to Storybrooke had given King Midas his golden touch back, whether he wanted it or not.

 

"Regina saved him for her own devious purposes."

 

"And look how  _ that _ turned out. Leave it to a woman to leave things half-done."  Stephen, still dressed in the clothes he'd attended the party at Granny's in, poured himself another drink. "Xavier would roll over in his grave if he saw his bloodline reduced to  _ her _ ."

 

George raised his glass, "To Xavier, one of the truly great Kings. What was it he used to say?" He paused, "Ah yes, love is weakness. Smart man." The other two men raised their glasses.

 

"His mistake," Midas grumbled, "Was letting that son of his marry a witch."

 

Stephen drained his drink, "Cora. She's was a frigid little peasant, but she could produce gold from straw. What's a man to do? She ruined Henry, walked all over him."

 

"He was weak, it was a good thing he was so far down the line of succession." George scoffed and puffed on his cigar, "But we still saw Regina rise as Queen." He shook his head, "I will never understand what Leopold saw in the wench."

 

Midas threw back his head and laughed as he prepared his own cigar by cutting the tip with an elegant gold instrument. "I do. He was a widower and she was a hot blooded eighteen year old beauty. Did you ever see her at court? Absolutely stunning."

 

"And evil." Stephen added darkly, "The woman is the devil incarnate."

 

"She wasn't so bad" George mused as he lit his own cigar, "when Leopold was still alive. The man was a mess over Eva and Snow, but he certainly held Regina's reigns tight."

 

"Perhaps too tight. If she had followed through and killed her step-daughter we wouldn't be stuck here in this little slice of purgatory playing the parts of businessmen and fools." Midas was especially bitter about the curse. His daughter had been cast as a victim and he had not liked that at all. His Abbigail was no one's puppet.

 

"We won't be for much longer." Stephen refilled his glass and offered the decanter of aged brandy to the other men. "Snow and her Shepherd Boy are losing people's confidence. Their inner circle remains intact, but the rest of the town is a little tired of fighting a war for  _ their _ happiness."

 

Midas took a refill and swirled it around, "And Regina?"

 

Stephen refilled George's glass and put the decanter back on the sidebar, 

"Far too interested in her son and the gypsy to worry about anything else."

 

"Gypsy?"  Midas's voice was guarded, but both of the other Kings could read the surprise in his voice.

 

"Yes some filthy mongrel named Esmeralda. She was apparently Regina's nursemaid. Honestly, that explains so very much about The Evil Queen."

 

It was hard to tell in the firelight, but Midas could feel every ounce of color drain from his face and his gloved hand curled into an unintentional fist. He felt each of Stephen's words like a punch to the gut. Esmeralda was in Storybrooke. Old resentment rose in his belly. The Gypsy bitch was back.

"I see." He fought to bring his face back under control. It would do no good to have the other two men know of his dealings with gypsies and their magic. Specifically this gypsy and the curse she'd laid on him years before. The curse he'd asked for, his golden touch.

 

"My daughter told me that Cora is also in Storybrooke with some pirate."

"Cora" A new and feminine voice, announced "is only interested in Regina and the boy she raised, Emma Swan's bastard." Leah glided into the cloud of cigar smoke and testosterone with the same grace she had wielded as a Queen in a ballroom. She plucked the decanter of brandy from her husband's hand and tossed the alcohol back with one smooth snap of her wrist. "Trust me, she will not bother us. She might even be an asset to our cause."

 

Stephen regarded his wife with an unreadable expression, "Aurora?"

 

The cold façade of a queen was momentarily replaced by a mother's warmth, "Upstairs asleep."

 

"I should bring Abbigail over one day, they used to get along famously." Midas grinned, "It is too bad that we both had daughters-" He let the thought go unfinished.

 

"Save the family talk." George's voice was sharp, like broken glass. "No one has explained to me how we're going to get rid of Snow and her Pretender. It's not as though I can send an army after them now."

 

Leah chuckled as she poured herself a drink from the side bar, "Men. Always thinking with your swords. Have twenty-eight years in this realm taught you  _ nothing _ ?" She stepped forward and stood beside her husband's chair, like a queen standing beside a king on his throne. "We won't have to lift a finger. This world is controlled by a different kind of power. Isn't that right?"

She turned her head to look into the darkness by the open doorway she'd come through.

 

"Knowledge has always been power, Your Majesty." Sidney Glass, gaunt from his time in the asylum, stepped into the light. "But here it is especially useful. People believe everything they read in the newspaper."

 

George turned to stare at the disgraced newsman, "And you think you know enough to help us?"

 

A wide smile stretched across Sidney's sunken face, "But of course, I am after all, the man in the mirror."

 

* * *

 

 

The mechanical ticking above her head ground into her skull like the hoofbeats of a cavalry. Mulan stared at the dark ceiling, unable to sleep. Belle had offered her the couch to sleep on, blankets and a soft pillow. It was everything she could possibly want in a bed after years on the road and years before that in the Imperial Army. She was tired, exhausted, beyond her usual limits of weariness, but she still could not sleep. Why couldn't she sleep?

 

She looked down at the floor beside her where her sheathed sword lay, ready to be taken up at a moment's notice. She doubted an army would break down a librarian's door. Storybrooke was a surprisingly quiet place, devoid of the chaos that had plagued the ruins of the Enchanted Forest. If this was a curse, Mulan reflected wryly, it did not seem so horrible. Belle had explained it to her. Most of the citizens had spent the last twenty-eight years living their lives with false memories. 

 

Where would she have fit in here? What would her false memories been like? She would not remember her family, but neither would she have remembered her dishonor. She wouldn't remember the camaraderie she'd found in the Imperial Army. She would forget the pain of her shame and the horror and disgust on her battle brother's faces when her true sex had been revealed. Here she would have been someone else, a fisher or a green grocer, perhaps. People would smile at her and welcome her instead of staring with suspicion.

 

It was foolish to think about these things, though. She had not been cursed, she had no such memories and to wish that she had was disgraceful. She rolled off the couch and landed silently on the balls of her feet. She was too confined, too closed in. She needed to see the sky and feel the wind. She needed to go for a long walk to clear her head.

 

She slid her feet into her boots, one of the items she refused to trade out for something more modern, and quietly let herself out of what Belle called an apartment. The stairs that lead from the alleyway behind the library to the apartment were solid and she went down them without a squeak or clatter of loose metal.

 

It was late, the stars were twinkling above her head and the Storybrooke streets were deserted. The large clock whose ticking had kept her awake, told her that it was just after midnight. She walked without a destination, the sword she had taken from her father's collection so many years before strapped to her side.

Storybrooke, Belle had told her that afternoon, was in a place called Maine which was a part of something called the United States of America. Only it wasn't. The Queen's curse kept the town separated from the rest of Maine by a magical barrier. The Queen, though, was not a queen here. She was a Mayor, or a low lord. She hadn't looked very powerful, Mulan mused. The woman that had been known far and wide as The Evil Queen looked defeated. 

 

When she had stumbled towards herself, Aurora and Esmeralda and had looked like death. She had met the woman's eyes, brown clouded by green magic, and recognized the look in them. The Evil Queen had been ready to die. She had been stronger when Mulan had seen her tonight, but the look in her eyes had been only a little less devastated. She had been uncomfortable, especially when she had caught The Evil Queen watching Aurora. She had felt the urge to move across the room and protect the princess from her gaze. Only, she realized, the look in the woman's eyes had not been dark or malevolent. It had been hurt, and wanting. After the way Henry treated her it must have hurt to see a mother and daughter so close and happy.

Mulan knew what it was like to ache for familial love.

 

Her own mother had cast her out of their family. Cora, the witch who stole hearts and laughed about it, could not have been very loving mother either. It disturbed her to think that she and a woman who had brought an entire world to its knees, might have something in common.

 

The sound of what Belle had told her was a car broke her out of her thoughts. She ducked around a fence, not sure how far away she needed to be from the machine to not be injured. She looked around at her surroundings for the first time in what seemed like hours. A large blue manor house met her gaze. It boasted a large front garden full of flowers and a sign beside the door declared it to be the home of the Weathersby's. Aurora's parents cursed names, of course. Her feet had led her to Aurora no matter what had been going through her head.

 

The front door opened and she darted around the side of some tall bushes. It would not do to be found in Aurora's parent's yard in the middle of the night with no explanation. She watched between the leaves of a shrub she had no name for as three men left the manor. It was very late for visitors, especially since the Weatherly's had just left a party. It was dark, but Mulan was positive that she did not know any of the men that set out in different directions. 

 

A small spark of concern shot up her spine. Her instincts, honed by years of war and secrecy, told her that this was not a good thing and those were not trustworthy men. Anyone who felt it necessary to come and go under the cover of darkness could not be up to anything honorable. She had to check on Aurora, just to be sure.

 

She walked around the side of the house, careful to be silent. The western wall of the house was covered with a trellis that had vines full of small flowers growing on it. They smelled sweet and that made her smile. Aurora should always be surrounded by beauty. Her room would be on the top floor, like any good princess. Mulan looked at the trellis and was suddenly glad she was not weighted down by her armor. She planted her boot on the first rung of the wooden trellis and it held her weight. She climbed the side of the house as quickly and quietly as she could. Looking for a sleeping princess, if Phillip had been at her side, it would be just like old times.

 

She eased herself onto the roof and saw that there was only one window that she could get to. She pressed herself to the wall beside the window. She peeked around the window and went still. The body lying in the bed was achingly familiar. Aurora lay sleeping, and from what Mulan could see in the moonlight, it was not peaceful. She had fallen back into the fire realm. No! 

 

She sank her fingers into the small gap between the window and it's sill. She grit her teeth and the window slid up with a small squeak of protest. She entered the room silently and slid to her knees beside Aurora's bed. The princess's face was lined with worry and pain. A small whimper escaped her lips and Mulan felt as though she had been elbowed in the chest. She reached into the pouch that rode on her sword belt and brought out a small stub of a candle. She remembered Snow's words and lit the candle with a match and shaky fingers. She paused for a moment then went back to her pouch. An incense stick quickly joined the candle on the bedside table. She pressed the stick into the already softening wax and smiled when it stood on its own. She lit it using the candle, then blew out the flame. Fragrant smoke started to rise and Mulan smiled. 

She reached out and allowed herself to stroke Aurora's cheek. "A light to guide you home and jasmine and amber to soothe you, my princess." There were words she would never say to Aurora were she awake.

 

Aurora smiled in her sleep and her face smoothed, her nightmare had come to an end.

 

"Phillip."

 

She would never be hers. Mulan stroked the woman's cheek and pushed the strand of hair back and behind the woman's ear. She tugged the blanket up over her shoulder. She padded softly back to the window and let herself out. She closed the window and stood still for a moment, crouched outside the window, staring in at the woman that would never ever be hers.

 

She dropped over the side of the house and hoped she could find her way back to Belle's lodging.

  
Had she stayed a moment longer she would have seen Aurora roll in her sleep. One bare arm broke out of the covers and in the midst of her slumber, reached for something or someone that was not there. Princess Aurora whimpered out the warrior's name before falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.


	12. Chapter XI: I Love You, Kid

Chapter XI

I Love You, Kid

 

Author’s Note:  _ Italics  _ indicate flashbacks.

 

_ She was jerked awake by two tiny feet impacting something that felt very close to her bladder. "Jesus, Kid, could you just stop?" She eased off her bunk and pushed her uniform blue pants down and relieved her now screaming bladder into the lidless stainless steel toilet that was two feet from her bed. She hated the fact that her toilet was so close to where she slept, but for a pregnant woman it was actually kind of convenient. Especially if you were pregnant with the next freaking David Beckham. _

 

_ Emma Swan had never imagined herself pregnant, she didn't want kids. Of course she had never imagined herself being in jail, either. She had always been a step ahead of the cops, a little bit smarter, and a little bit faster. Now she was pregnant and in jail, both at the same damn time. _

" _ Your mother is a major fuck-up, Kid." She laid her hands on her seven-months-along-stomach and sighed. She was, according to the nurse-practitioner that the jail paid to keep the inmates more-or-less healthy, having a boy.  _

 

_ She looked at the black and white sonogram printout she had taped to the gray wall above the bolted-down table and chair that served as a desk. She wasn't sure how the woman could tell what gender the Kid was, the picture looked like a black and gray blob to her. The kinda-person-looking blob that was inside her. Her son. Fuck. Fuck Neal. Fuck jail. Fuck being pregnant. This was not how her life was supposed to go. This was not how she wanted any kid of hers to live, either. Which was why there was no way in hell she was keeping this kid.  _

 

_ What could she offer him? She was a teenage convict with no high school diploma or strictly legal talents or skills. He would end up in the system so fast that it wasn't even funny. That was definitely not happening. Her Kid was not going to grow up like she did. He was not going to bounce from home to home where no one cared about him. He was not going to be someone's paycheck. _

 

_ If she put him up for adoption at birth, with one of the fancy-schmancy private adoption firms he would get a real family. He would grow up being loved and cherished and would never know that he'd been born in jail to an idiot. She had studying to do, she was working on her G.E.D., but she went back to her bunk instead. _

 

_ Her Kid was going to be adopted by a great family, she told herself. A Dad who taught him to throw a baseball and ride a bike. He would have one of those 9 to 5 jobs where he had to wear a tie and signed off on paperwork all day. Like a lawyer or an accountant. He would be mild and respectable, he would volunteer to lead the Kid's Boy Scout troop. He would have a mom. She closed her eyes and tried to picture it. A pale yellow nursery decorated with the alphabet and soft and fuzzy animals. There would be a crib, and a rocking chair by a window that looked out over a huge green yard with trees for forts and flowers for picking. Though it was totally old school, his mom would be a stay-at-home one. She would cook and bake and dedicate her life to her son. She would sew his Halloween costumes and spend hours reading to him. _

 

_ Sleep started to sneak up on her and Emma smiled as she surrounded to it. Her Kid would be happy, surrounded by nice people in some little po-dunk town where no one locked their doors and the Sheriff didn't do anything but eat doughnuts. Like that old black and white TV show, the one with whistling. _

 

_ Hopes slowly gave way to dreams and Emma found herself in the yellow nursery. A warm, gorgeous voice, met her ears first and she turned to see a brunette woman in the rocking chair she'd imagined. There was a baby in her arms and she was singing him to sleep. Emma hadn't been sung to sleep often, not since her first family had shipped her back, but she knew some lullabies, the old standards. This was not one she knew of. It was slow, and melodic, and in a different language. Was that Spanish? She didn't know for sure. _

 

_ What she did know was that the woman was her Kid's mother and she was perfect. _

 

" _ I love you so much, my Little One." _

 

_ And Emma loved him too, completely. _

 

_ The baby had fallen asleep in her arms and the woman rose to lay him down in the crib. Emma caught sight of her face and was amazed at the beauty, joy and sadness she found there. She reached out to touch the other woman, to comfort her. She didn't want her son's mother to be sad. Only happy. She wanted to see the woman's perfect red lips, the scar only added to their appeal, stretch into a smile. _

 

" _ Swan!" _

 

_ The guard barked her name and she jerked awake, back in her gray cell once more. The dream started to evaporate almost immediately and was gone by the time her sock-clad feet touched the cold concrete floor. _

 

" _ Time for lunch, Preggo." _

 

_ She rolled her eyes at the guard's stupid joke and stood up. Hopefully The Kid wouldn't protest today's lunch selection too much. _

 

"Mom."

She was rudely shaken out of her sleep by someone's hand on her shoulder and she rolled away from the asshole that was disturbing her. Could they not see she was trying to sleep?

 

"Mom."

 

Christ Almighty, somebody was about to get her boot up their ass. "I'm sleepin', go away."

 

The hand descended again, "But it's after noon and you  _ promised _ to take me to the stables today."

 

Reality crashed in on her. Emma cracked open an eye and all she could see was Henry's face about six inches away from her own. She let out a groan and started to sit up. Everything hurt. 

 

Snow, David, Henry and she had come home after the Diner and had settled in to watch  _ The Avengers _ . They had been halfway through the movie, and she'd been into the action. Crazy fight scenes were awesome when you weren't apart of them. 

 

Then her phone had rung. Some of the Dwarves had taken the party down to The Rabbit Hole and a friendly discussion had devolved into a brawl. David had started to get up, but she waved him off, she was the Sheriff, after all.

How exactly a discussion about The Pats versus The Giants had turned into a huge brawl was beyond her. She hadn't realized that fairy tale creatures even followed football, let alone felt so passionately about it. 

 

She had waded into the middle of everything and had caught a stool across her back for her trouble. Grumpy had a wicked strong swing, probably thanks to all that diamond mining. He, and a few other assholes, were currently cooling their heels down at the station under Ruby and David's watch. She had stumbled home, her fists and ribs aching, at about six in the morning and had hoped to sleep for ever.

 

She squinted at the clock and saw that it was 12:15. What the hell was Henry doing home from school in the middle of the day? Also why did her eyes burn like fire? She twisted around and put her feet on the floor. She had fallen asleep with her contacts in again. Her eyes, crappy vision wasn't genetic it was apparently all hers, still hadn't recovered from her jolly adventures in The Enchanted Forest. 1-800 Contacts did not deliver to fairy tale lands and she'd been stuck in the same pair the entire time. It had become a pretty bad problem towards the end. The left contact had torn a little and had rubbed against her eye like sandpaper. She had seriously considered taking them out, but being half-blind in the forest hadn't seemed like a great idea at the time.

 

Henry followed her downstairs and into the bathroom. Kid had little concept of personal space, apparently. She looked in the mirror and winced at what she saw. She looked like Hell. She washed her hands and then started to fish in her left eye for her contact. It was such an ingrained habit at this point that it took little to no thought.

 

"What are you doing home in the middle of the day?"

 

Henry sat on the edge of the bathtub and she could see him shrug in the mirror. "Half day."

 

She should have known that. God, there was so much going on with that school. Was there some kind of schedule or something? Snow should have told her. Emma switched to her right eye and sighed audibly. No, she was Henry's mother. She should have known he only had a half day at school. Ugh, she sucked at being a responsible adult, and she definitely sucked at being a mom.

 

She reached, almost literally blindly, and grabbed her eye drops. She felt almost instant relief when she dropped the visine into her eyes. She really didn't want to put in a fresh set of contacts, but had no choice. Well, there was a choice, but she didn't want to be blind all day. She really needed to invest in a new pair of glasses for days like this.

 

"Oh. Yeah, I remember now." Liar.

 

"So we can go to the stables. I want to show you my horse."

 

Oh yay, she had never been around horses, but assumed that she would hate them. She and animals didn't tend to get along well. Especially animals big enough to stomp you to death before prancing away.

She put her contacts in with a practiced finger and blinked until her vision lined up properly.

 

"Sure, Kid, sounds fun." Big fat liar.

 

She loved Henry, though, so she would do this.

 

She turned in time to see his face split into a huge grin and he wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed hard.

 

Yeah, she would do just about anything to see her son smile at her like that.

 

It was a short drive to the Stables, of course everything was a relatively short drive in Storybrooke. She listened with half an ear as Henry proceeded to tell her every single detail of everything David had told him about or he had done with his horse. Kid was excited. When she parked her Bug at the stables, Henry was unbuckled and out the door before she had even turned the car off. She followed at a far more sedate pace, because if she had to run today she would probably die. 

 

Her back was killing her. She wrinkled her nose as she got closer. Horse shit. She smelled literal horse shit. The only time she'd ever smelled it before was on Parade Days when the cops on horses came through. This was allot worse than that. It wasn't all bad, though, she supposed. There was also the smell of hay and wood chips and what she assumed was horse.

 

She followed the sound of Henry's excited voice, but stopped and had to move to the side when a man leading a horse came through. She didn't recognize the stable dude, but he nodded to her as if he knew her. The horse made her step back an extra bit. It was huge. Huge and black and it looked at her like she was delicious sugar cube just waiting to be gobbled up. It snorted at her, it wasn't a nice sound.

 

"Don't mind him, Sheriff, he's just temperamental."

 

He clucked his tongue, "C'mon Tencendur, let's get you out for your run."

She watched the man and the horse walk away and prayed Henry's horse wasn't as huge or mean looking. Surely not. He was just a little boy. He should be riding something out of  _ My Little Pony.  _ The beast that walked by her looked like it belonged in a rodeo, bucking some cowboy off it's back. She hated horses. The only other horse she'd ever been around had been the one she had been tied to and that hadn't been fun either.

 

She found Henry in a stall with a much smaller, way nicer looking, horse. Or was it a pony? She wasn't actually sure if there was a difference. Henry, all smiles, told her the horse's name but she immediately forgot it. "Hey" she paused, "Horsey." He looked nicer than the big black one, but who knew what horses thought? The horse seemed to like Henry, though.

 

"I'm going to go take him for a walk, do you wanna come?"

Take him for a walk? Like a dog? Well, anything was better than riding him, she supposed.

 

"Sure."

 

Henry lead the horse, by the reins, out of a large fenced in yard. Emma looked around cautiously and was happy to find that all the other horses, the big black bruiser included, were safely behind other fences. It was just her, The Kid, and his horse. She could deal with that. They walked all the way around the yard and then circled it again. Henry talked the whole time and Emma sunk her hands into her pockets and listened.

 

"So Grampa says he has to trust me before I ride him because a Knight and his Steed are a team."

 

Well, she grinned, David would know all about being a Knight in Shining Armor. "Yeah, he's pretty knowledgeable about that stuff."

 

"Well, he is Prince Charming."

 

She grinned, Kid had her sense of humor.

 

"So-" She sidestepped a pile of what she was pretty sure was horse shit, "it's been a busy few days. How are you holding up?"

 

He had been having crazy fire nightmares, watching his grandfather (who was really old enough to be his father) be cursed, watched his mother suck up a crazy death curse and met the princess from his dreams, a warrior woman from a Disney movie and his mother's childhood nurse. Oh and his batshit insane grandmother was now on the scene too. It was allot to take in for her and she was an adult.

 

"Well I'm really glad you and Snow are back." So was she.

 

"And Mulan seems really cool. Belle is all excited about having her in town. She told me that her and Mulan once went monster hunting together but it turned out that the monster wasn't really a monster, it was Prince Phillip." Well that hadn't been in the Disney movie.

 

"And the principal at my school is Princess Aurora's mom." Okay so Queen Leah was the principal of Henry's school. How many Queens were employed at that school, anyway?

 

"I only wish the  _ Gypsy _ hadn't come." It wasn't just the word, it was the way Henry said it. He said it with something that was way too close to hate for a little boy.

 

She was putting a stop to that shit right here and now.

 

"Henry!"

 

He paused and looked at her, "What?"

 

Oh Christ, he sounded exactly like her when she had been a snot-nosed kid who thought she knew everything. Same superior tone, same level of sarcasm, same look in his eyes. Damn.

 

"I don't want you talking like that." She was his mom and right now she had to lay down the law. She tried to think of what Regina or Snow would say, but came up blank. She was going to have to wing it.

 

"She has a name and it's Esmeralda. She's really important to your mom and you should respect her."

 

Henry blinked, "But Grandma and Grampa said that Gypsies are evil and wrong, they're bad people."

She was going to have a talk with David and Snow about this Esmeralda thing.

 

She went down to one knee and prayed that it was dirt and not shit under her knee.

 

"Henry you can't do that. Racism isn't cool. You can't judge anybody just based on what someone says. So your grandparents don't like gypsies? I know people who don't like black people and they're called the KKK. It's wrong to dislike anyone based on the color of their skin. Didn't your mom teach you that?"

 

She sounded like a freaking after school special, only with fairytales thrown in.

 

He squirmed, obviously uncomfortable, "Well yeah, she said that it's ignorant and immoral to judge anyone based on their race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation." It definitely sounded like something Regina would say. Hell it sounded like a line out of the Town Charter. Maybe it was, she hadn't really read all of it.

 

"She's right, Henry. Everyone deserves to be treated the same no matter if they're Asian, gay, Catholic or even a Gypsy."

 

"But" his brow furrowed, "She's evil, they're both evil!"

 

Emma thought about the woman who had looked at her last night, the woman who had been terrified for her son, and the woman who had been terrified of her own mother. The woman who had begged her to accept an apology. She remembered the woman she had seen in Regina's kitchen. Esmeralda had tended to Regina with a mother's touch. It was sort of awkward, like how she and Snow interacted, but someone who cared that much about another person couldn't be straight-up evil. It was the same reason she knew Regina couldn't be all evil, she loved Henry too much. Evil, true evil, couldn't love.

 

"Henry, we don't even know Esmeralda. Who's to say if she's evil or good or in-between." The Kid needed to know that there was an in-between. There weren't just saints and sinners in the world, there was a whole group of people who lived in-between those two titles, herself included. "And your mother is not evil."

 

He started to protest but she cut him off, "Evil people can't love, Henry. Regina loves you more than anything else. She did some bad things, and I'm not saying she is perfect."

 

Well, physically she was perfection, but the Kid  _ definitely _ didn't need to know that.

 

"But she is trying to change. It's hard for her, you know. Everyone treats her like crap and they keep telling her she's nothing but evil and she'll always be evil. When you're told you're no good over and over again, you start to believe it."

 

She understood how that felt all too well.

 

"So you start doing things that aren't that good, because hey no one expects any better of you." Was she still talking about Regina?

 

"Because sometimes the easy way is the bad way. Why work hard and do good when nobody gives a damn?" Okay, she was pretty sure she wasn't talking about  _ just _ Regina anymore.

 

"Turning things around, getting on the right path is hard and it hurts and sometimes it's just easier to give up and be the person everyone thinks you already are." How many times had she slipped? Putting her life together after jail had been rough. Tallahassee had been her proving ground. She had stumbled and had no one to help her get back on her feet, but she had done it. Regina could do it too. "So cut your mom a little slack, okay. She's trying."

 

Henry looked at her, and didn't seem totally convinced, but he nodded.

 

She stood back up and threw an arm over his shoulder, "Awesome."

This parenting stuff was way harder than it looked on TV.

 

"So let's finish up with your buddy here, then we can go to Granny's for some food. I am starving."

That cheered him up, as if he hadn't been to Granny's for weeks instead of since just last night.

 

He led the horse in and Emma lagged behind him, in no hurry to go back into the Stables. Everything she'd said was the God's honest truth. Swear on a stack of Bibles, and all that good stuff. Why had she said it, though? Why did she care what Henry thought of Regina? The woman wasn't exactly mother of the year.

 

The look on her face, though, when Emma had thanked her for taking care of Henry. The way that she had sounded so damn sad and proud when she'd said Henry was the only good thing she'd ever done. That told Emma exactly what she needed to know and that was why she had defended Regina. Despite her flaws, and there were allot of them, Regina was exactly the kind of mother she had always wanted her child to have.

 

She caught up to Henry and watched him brush his horse with slow, sure strokes. He looked so happy, healthy and bright. She could have never given him all of this. Had she kept him, he would have lived in some shitty walk-up apartment in some city's rough district. He would go to a crappy under-funded public school and would have learned which gang signs to avoid by now. He wouldn't be the sweet, funny kid he was. He would be street-smart and smart-mouthed and hardened to hardship. He wouldn't be  _ Henry _ . Giving him away, giving him to Regina to raise, had been the best decision she'd ever made.

 

"I love you, Kid, you know that right?"

 

He looked up and cocked his head to the side, "Of course. I love you too, Mom."

 

When she had been pregnant and in jail she had told herself that these were words she'd never hear. Now that she heard them, her heart filled with warmth and love. Her Kid, the little boy she'd carried inside her for nine months, loved her.

 

It was hard, damn hard, but maybe being a Mom was exactly everything it was cracked up to be.


	13. Chapter XII: Talk It Out

Chapter XII

Talk it Out

 

Archie enjoyed his morning walks with Pongo. Storybrooke was just beginning to stir, people were starting to wake up and go about their routines. He could smell fresh bread and coffee wafting in the air from Granny's Diner. He could watch Marco rolling his usual assortment of sidewalk items out of the store. The town's children walked towards the school and people were running early morning errands before they started their work for the day. It was all normal, familiar and peaceful. Of course it was familiar, he grinned to himself, he'd only been taking this exact same walk for twenty-eight years. As if on cue, Pongo started to tug on his leash. Archie knew who was waiting by his office door before he saw. Pongo only rushed towards only two people in town and Henry was in school.

 

Regina Mills stood by his office door. She was dressed in her customary business attire that was covered by a black coat. Though her makeup was just as impeccable as it ever was, he could tell that she had not slept well.

"Good Morning, Regina."

 

She looked up from the spot on the sidewalk she'd been staring intently at, "Good Morning, Doctor Hopper." Her voice was quiet and low. He switched Pongo's leash to his left hand so he could unlock his door.

 

"Is there something I can help you with?"

 

Pongo had no such manners, he nudged Regina's thigh with his nose and all but demanded to be petted. Former Evil Queen or not, Regina was an animal lover. Her hand dropped to Pongo's black and white head and started to scratch behind his ears.

 

"I was wondering" She looked at him with bloodshot eyes, "if you had a moment to talk to me?"

 

The last time she had sought him out, she had been forced to use magic to end her fiancé's life. If you could call what Doctor Whale had done to the man life.

 

"Of course."

They went to his office without another word. He opened that door and stepped inside. Pongo, uncharacteristically, remained outside until Regina entered. When she sat on the sofa, Pongo sat right beside her. Pongo, Archie knew, was very in-tune with human emotions. While he would like to think that was from being around him, it probably had more to do with sitting in on twenty-eight years' worth of therapy sessions. Still, he couldn't fault Pongo this time. Regina Mills was very subdued this morning, something was bothering her. He shut the door, a sign that he was in-session and not to be disturbed, and sat down in his chair.

 

He hadn't spent much time with Regina, but knew that the woman  _ needed _ to be in control, so he said nothing and let her go at her own pace.

 

"I received some disturbing information last night."

 

Her level of formality indicated that she was very uncomfortable with whatever news she had been given.

 

She took a deep breathe, "My mother is in Storybrooke."

 

Ah, Cora. He had heard this news himself, but he wasn't sure what to do with it. He had never met or heard of the woman. He knew that she was Regina's mother and that Snow and Emma had difficulties with her in the Enchanted Forest, but that was all.

 

"And how does that make you feel?" It was a clichéd question, but sometimes the simplest and most antiquated questions worked the best.

 

"Like I should grab Henry and run far, fast, and never look back."

 

He felt his brows raise in response. The way Regina spoke, the quickness of her answer and the emphasis on running. This was fear. This was a very deep seated fear that had manifested at the very mention of Cora Mills. That Regina's first instinct was to run and not fight was very telling. This was the woman who had fought two different armies at the same time without breaking a sweat. If he knew anything about Regina Mills, it was that she was a fighter by nature.

 

"You think she would hurt Henry?"

There was a flash in Regina's eyes and he recognized it as another sign of fear. He had seen this before, when he and Henry had been in the mine. The look on Regina's face when she had seen Henry, the stark fear of a mother who wasn't sure if her child was safe, was back. Only this time it did not fade. Regina was genuinely afraid for Henry and herself.

 

"Yes."

 

He did not need to ask if Cora had hurt Regina. He already knew that she had been the one to kill Regina's Daniel. There was more, though, to the story. Regina would not be this afraid if the Daniel incident had been the only one. He had received his degrees and knowledge via the curse, but he also had instincts and he'd had those his entire life. He knew how it felt to have your mother smack you for no reason. He knew that words could hurt just as much as a smack. He recognized the fear and the shame of a fellow survivor of child abuse. He also knew that any sign of pity or empathy on his part would make Regina close up and leave. He had to play this very carefully.

 

"What can you tell me about your relationship with your mother?"

 

Regina's hand paused on Pongo's head and a single dark brow rose. "Why Doctor Hopper, how very Freudian of you."

 

Most people underestimated Regina's intelligence and didn't understand her wit. He was not one of them. He grinned at her remark, "We can talk about cigars and sex dreams later if you'd like, Madame Mayor."

 

A smile, small but a smile none the less, flashed across her face and Regina relaxed just a little.

 

He wanted to punch the air in victory, this was the most he had seen her relax.

 

Her face darkened a little, "My relationship with my mother is-"She closed her eyes for a moment, and he would bet a great deal of money that the images that were playing across her mind's eye weren't pleasant. "complicated."

 

He was about to lose her again. He could see it in the way her shoulders stiffened.

 

"And Esmeralda?"

 

The change of subject was abrupt and unexpected and for a moment he thought Regina may leave. She didn't. She relaxed again and he smiled. He was actually not too bad at his job, cricket or no.

 

"Esmeralda", another small smile graced her face, "was the best part of my childhood."

 

Archie hooked one ankle over the opposite knee. They had never spoken of Regina's childhood.

 

"And did she teach you the Old Ways?"

 

Regina nodded almost shyly. The Old Ways were called that for a reason, most of the people of the Enchanted Forest no longer believed in them, many did not even know of them. He had heard of the Old Ways because his family had been gypsies in the truest sense of the word and they had met members of many Romani Clans. Some of his fondest memories were of nights spent around Romani campfires listening to their stories.

 

"That must have been interesting for you. The Old Ways cast an entirely different light on actions, consequences and well, every interaction between two people. The Romani believe in redemption and the balance of dark and light. I think those ideas have impacted your life far more than even you realize."

 

Had he stepped over the line? It was important not to push the envelope with patients at the beginning of their treatments. Especially patients who had legendary tempers and could throw fireballs.

 

Regina blinked, "I-"

 

Here it came. He fought against his very natural instinct to flinch.

 

"I had never thought about it like that."

Regina had stopped scratching Pongo's head so he laid it in her lap.

"I've been trying to redeem myself, for Henry." She trailed off for a moment, lost in her own thoughts, "but I'd forgotten that the Romani reserve honor for those who struggle to return to the balanced path."

 

Archie nodded, now that he had her mind on that track he could try something he'd been thinking about for a while. "The balanced path doesn't mean perfection, Regina. It doesn't mean not making mistakes and being an unblemished saint. It means keeping the dark and light within you balanced. It means repaying every evil deed with an act of good. Redemption is not the destination, it is the journey."

 

Regina blinked at him, she obviously recognized the old Romani proverb.

"This is known."Her lips curved into a smile as she spoke and he returned the smile.

 

They had made a definite break through.

 

* * *

 

 

David Nolan walked from the Sheriff's Office to Granny's Diner. What a day! He'd finally released the prisoners from last night's fight. It just wasn't worth the effort, the headache or the paperwork to hold them anymore. Grumpy, hungover and surly, had been especially bad. If Emma didn't like it, she could take guard duty next time. He immediately felt bad about that thought. He should have gone to the Rabbit Hole in the first place. Someone had hit  _ his daughter _ with a stool. His mind replayed the conversation he'd had with Stephen the night before. Emma was a princess and a woman, maybe being the Sheriff wasn't really a good fit for her.

 

"You look like you're thinking some very serious thoughts."

 

He smiled. Snow had been waiting on him on Granny's Patio. She was wearing a blue jacket and a white hat and she looked so beautiful that his knees went just a little weak. Just like they always had. He had married the most beautiful woman in this or any other world.

 

"Nothing that can't be shelved until later."

 

He crossed the distance between them and took Snow into his arms and kissed his wife for all he was worth. Their lips fit together perfectly and he felt every inch of his skin break into goose bumps. He wrapped his arms around his wife and smiled into the kiss when he felt her arms loop around his neck.

 

"Ugh." They broke apart at the exclamation and turned to see Smee, red woolen cap and all, walk past them with a scowl on his face. "You two are nauseating."

 

They should have been insulted but when Snow started to snicker, he couldn't help himself, he laughed. Sometimes it was good to be reminded that he and Snow weren't just rulers, they were people too. He was a hungry person. He looped his arm around Snow's waist, "Come on, let's get something to eat. I have been dealing with a hung over dwarf for far too long today."

 

Granny's Diner was doing its usual share of business. It was a little early for lunch, just a few minutes before noon, and David was more than ready for lunch. He and Snow sat down in one of the booths and Snow turned around to speak to Doc for a moment. He looked around. He didn't see Ruby. He did another sweep and saw the brunette staring out of the window with a blank look on her face.

 

"Hey Ruby."

 

The woman actually jumped. He had known Red or Ruby as she preferred to be called now, a long time. Not as long as Snow had known her, but when you fight a war beside someone you learned a few things about them. One thing he knew about Ruby was that she was never surprised. No one could startled the usually alert werewolf.

 

"You okay?"

 

She came over to their booth, a smile firmly in place, "Just a little tired, sorry guys."

 

Snow smiled at her best friend, "Don't worry about it, Rubes. The whole Storybrooke Police Force is pretty wiped out today."

 

"Yeah."

Ruby didn't sound convinced and her eyes darted to the door when it opened again. It was almost as if she was looking for someone specific.

"So" David cleared his throat a little, "I will have a burger with the works, fries and coleslaw on the side." He grinned at his wife and could almost hear her lecture about proper nutrition coming. "And a Cherry Coke."

 

It was his usual order and Ruby didn't even bother to write it down. She only turned her attention to Snow. He watched the two of them interact, watching for anything different. There was nothing. Ruby seemed like she was back to normal. She made a joke about Snow's order, a Caesar salad and the soup of the day with a Diet Coke, then sauntered off to put their orders in without a hitch in her step. Maybe she was just tired.

 

He was about to go to the men's room when Granny came up to them. "Have you two seen today's paper?"

 

David blinked, he usually read the paper, but had been at the Station and hadn't gotten a chance to look at the Storybrooke  _ Daily Mirror _ .

 

"No, why?" Snow furrowed her brow, "is there something in it about Emma and me coming back?"

 

It was the only thing she could think of that had been newsworthy lately.

 

"Not exactly." Granny slapped the paper on their table.

 

"What the  _ Hell _ ?"

 

Snow rarely cursed, but David found himself thinking far saltier words when his eyes fell on the bold headline that stretched across the front page:

"Prince Charming a Fraud!"

 

A picture of himself and Snow was on the top left but the rest of the page, above and below the fold, was devoted to the story. His story, to be exact. The real one. It started with how his parents traded his twin brother, Prince James, to Rumplestiltskin for their farm and continued on from there. It spoke of his humble life as a shepherd and of the deal he struck to become his dead brother. It even spoke of how he had slayed Midas's dragon and courted his daughter. It briefly touched on his and Snow's fiery and frustrating first meetings and how he had broken his engagement to Abbigail. His days of being a so-called outlaw were touted. Snow White's illicit lover, it called him. It named him a traitor to his own people and spoke of how he had sold himself to The Evil Queen in exchange for his life.

It wasn't all lies, of course. 

 

He had pretended to be James for a very long time. Still, though, it didn't say anything about Frederick and how Abbigail had been more than happy to break their betrothal. He definitely hadn't betrayed his people, exactly, he'd just defied King George. As for being sold to Regina, he sure as hell hadn't done that. She had saved him from execution, that was true enough, but it had been to use him against Snow. Snow. His hands crumpled the side of the paper. It implied that they had been in some kind of unsavory and torrid affair. She was his true love! They had been married by Sir Lancelot before they'd ever made love.

 

Page Two was dedicated to their struggle against The Evil Queen, and it painted him and Snow as villains just as bloodthirsty as Regina had been. The article practically laid the blame for the Dark Curse at their feet. The article continued by remarking on his coma then his rocky faux marriage to Katherine. When the article referred to his finding Mary Margaret as adultery he threw the paper down.

 

"This is  _ crap _ ."

 

He couldn't believe people were allowed to print such lies. He stood up, food forgotten.

 

"What are you doing?"

 

He looked at his wife and she was stock still, her doe eyes wide and her skin a shade or two paler than usual.

 

"I'm going to go down to the paper and kick whoever wrote this piece of filth in the throat."

 

He was suddenly very glad that he had left his gun at the station under lock and key.

 

"That's not going to fix anything, David."

 

Snow looked around and he suddenly remembered that they were very much in public and that every eye was on him.

 

"Those are lies, Snow."

 

Her eyes flicked away from his, "Not all of it. Those things did happen."

 

He clenched his fists, "But not the way they're making them out. It's making us out to be-"He sputtered to a stop, he didn't even have words.

 

"Like a prince and a princess who eloped without their parent's permissions and broke a vital alliance between two kingdoms and then went to war with another?" Snow smiled weakly, "That's exactly what we did."

 

He crossed his arms over his chest. " _ Regina _ did this."

 

This was exactly the kind of thing she would do. She had run a smear campaign against Emma using exactly this kind of tactic.

 

"No" The Evil Queen herself stood at the Diner door, "she did not."

Regina crossed the room and everything was silent. Her heel clicks could be heard all over the room. "What would I have to gain from this?" She waved her hand over the paper and shook her head, "This is, to use a cliche, old news."

 

Snow narrowed her eyes, "So you know about it?"

 

Regina shrugged, "I saw the headline, the rest is relatively easy to discern."

David turned to face the woman head-on, "So why did you do it?"

 

"Are you  _ deaf _ ?" Regina snarled the word at him, "I have no reason to print 

articles like this and if you haven't noticed I hold no power over the paper or any other part of Storybrooke now." She turned to stand in line at the counter, "You better ask yourself how many other people in our quaint little town hold a grudge against you and go talk to them."

 

He opened his mouth to defend himself, but then closed it again. He looked to Snow and could tell that she was thinking the same thing he was. If it hadn't been Regina, the most obvious suspect, then there was only one other person who knew the story and hated him. King George.

He sat back down and tried to ignore Regina, even when he was positive that he heard her mutter "Idiot." under her breathe.


	14. Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII

Hello Again, Dearie

 

Author’s Note:  _ Italics  _ indicate flashbacks.

 

" _ Can I eat one, Nan?"  _

 

_ Esmeralda carefully inspected the tree's very first fruits. The tree was six years old, like Regina, and though it was unusually early for a Honey Crisp to bear fruit so early, she was not surprised. She plucked one of the bright red apples from the tree and wiped it on her cloak to remove any dirt. _

 

" _ Yes, Nightingale, it is your tree so you should be the one to enjoy its fruit first." _

 

_ Regina, bright and beautiful, grinned and took the apple with a laugh. Happiness sparked in her dark brown eyes. "Can we pick one for you and Daddy too? You planted it for me when I was a baby." _

 

_ They had. She remembered it like it had happened only days instead of years before. She had cut a honey crisp apple into half and she and Henry had each taken a bite. Then she slid her dagger across each of their palms and let their intermingled blood fall on the flesh of the apple. She carefully bound the wound on Henry's hand, then her own. She had turned to Regina, sleeping peacefully on her cloak and the fragrant grass of the meadow she had spread it across. She had very carefully cut a lock of silky black hair from the baby's head and then laid a kiss on her smooth forehead. _

 

" _ By binding the blood of those who love her and the babe's essence to this tree, it will provide a tether for her soul. So long as she tends to this tree, she will never be completely lost." Henry held the apple as she curled the hair around the fruit's seeds. _

 

" _ And she will have a connection to us, to the love we feel." _

 

_ Henry smiled at her as he spoke and his closeness made her heart clench in a way that she had sworn it never would again. _

 

" _ Yes." Her words had been little more than a whisper. They knelt together and carefully planted the half of the apple with the seeds that would grow into a tree. When Henry's fingers brushed against hers as they resettled the dirt, she felt her skin tingle. _

 

" _ It's good, Nan!" Regina's voice shook her out of her thoughts. _

 

" _ Of course, it is as sweet as you are, My Little One." _

 

_ Regina's giggle was like music to her ears. _

 

" _ Oh I don't know about all of that." _

 

_ A man in a black cloak appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and Esmeralda immediately pulled Regina behind her. _

 

" _ Reveal yourself." _

 

_ There were few people foolish enough to come onto a noble's private lands unannounced. There were fewer still that would risk angering the prince's wife. Cora practiced dark magic, this was known. When the intruder pushed back his hood, Esmeralda felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. _

 

" _ Little One, take your father an apple." _

 

_ She had to get her little girl away, now. _

 

" _ But I should greet our guest, Mother says that a Lady should always be graci-" _

 

" _ Now."  Her voice hardened and she spoke harshly. She hated speaking to Regina so roughly, she got enough poison and cruelty from Cora, but she would not tolerate arguments, not now. _

 

" _ Okay."  She took her apple and another and stomped off towards the barn where Henry was tending to his beloved horses. _

 

" _ And they say the Romani are famed for their hospitality." His voice was mocking and irreverent, and carried a subtle insult. _

 

_ She waited until she knew that Regina was out of earshot.   _ " _ You are not welcome here, Dark One." _

 

_ He clapped his hands and laughed, it was a chilling sound devoid of true joy. It sounded cruel and mirthless, much like Cora's laugh. _

 

" _ Oh, but I am. Where do you think the girl's mother learns all her nasty little spells from?" _

 

_ Esmeralda narrowed her eyes. She was not surprised that Cora held court with the Dark One, but knowing the beast had been so close to her precious Little Nightingale made her temper kick up in her chest. _

" _ You will not touch that little girl." _

 

_ He moved like lightening, in a blink of an eye he had her pinned against the tree, his hand on her throat. _

 

" _ That little girl has a destiny far beyond what you can see, Soothsayer. She is already mine, Dearie." _

 

_ His words were venomous, his breath hot, his spittle spattered against her cheek. She did not flinch.  _ " _ I am not afraid of you, Dark One." _

 

_ She should be, The Dark One was an ancient being, descended from and powered by the very first act of evil. This was the terrible being that her people feared above all others. This was the boogey-man of their nightmares and the ominous villain of every fireside tale. Every rational part of her being told her to be afraid of him. She was not. His odd gold skin was slimy and warm, like a toad's. His eyes were feral, like a wild cat and his desperation, his carefully hidden cowardice, shined through his bravado. _

 

" _ You should be. The only thing keeping you alive right now is my amusement." He tightened his grip on her neck but she did not allow herself to gasp for air or fight his grasp. She would not even kick her feet when they left the ground. This was a battle of wills and she refused to surrender. _

 

" _ Only a coward" She forced the words through her abused and constricted throat, "would attack an unarmed woman and child. Are you a coward, Dark One? Is that why you slink around in the shadows making deals, because you are too afraid to dirty your own hands with real men's work?" _

 

_ She was playing a dangerous game now. She came from a long and strong line of Soothsayers, and her magic was powerful, but she was a rank amateur compared to the Dark One and they both knew it.  He leaned close enough so that his nose almost touched hers. She wrinkled her nose in protest at his proximity. He is a loathsome, deranged and despicable creature. She, and all her people, cursed his name.  He was glaring at her, challenging her to try to free herself. Why waste her energy fighting a battle she couldn't win? _

 

" _ You are a brave woman, aren't you, Esmeralda? Tell me are you truly willing to die here and now? For her? You served as her soothsayer, you know Regina is mine. She has always been and will always be mine. You know what she will do. Why do you defend her? It is against everything your people stand for." _

 

_ Names have power and he wants her to know that this was not a random meeting. He had planned this.   _ " _ You know nothing of me or my people, Rumplestiltskin." _

_ Names have power and she feels a tingle of victory when he loosened his grip and stepped back. He had not expected her to know his name. _

" _ This is not over, Gypsy." _

 

_ He raised his hood again and she squared her shoulders and stood to her full height, "Not for many years, Dark One." _

 

_ He disappeared in a black cloud and all of her strength left her. It took minutes, only a handful, for the clatter of hooves to catch her attention. _

 

_ The image, Henry astride his chestnut hued steed, was one that had always calmed her. He all but leapt from his saddle and she found herself wrapped in his arms.  That was when she let herself tremble. That was when she let the tears come.  She felt hands, calloused but gentle, in her hair. _

 

" _ Did he hurt you? Oh Spirits, did he hurt you, My Love?" _

 

_ Henry was everything she had ever wanted. He was intelligent, kind, loving and he had a gentle, understated strength that most did not recognize or understand. He was also married and a Prince. They could never be together, and yet she loved him. She loved him with all of her heart and soul. He was Regina's father, and from the moment they had met she had known that they were destined to love and lose each other. Their story was not one of Regina's storybook tales, it was a tragedy waiting to play out. _

 

" _ Yes." She could not, would not, lie to Henry. _

 

_ He pulled her close and she could smell horses and liniment oil, leather and the faint smell of the cinnamon candies he kept in his pocket for the sweet child they both loved. _

 

" _ I am sorry, Esmeralda. I should have been here to protect you, to keep you both safe." He tightened his arms around her and when she looked up at his face she could see tears swimming in his eyes. His beautiful dark eyes, the eyes he shared with his daughter. No matter what she could always see the truth in his eyes, they betrayed his every thought and feeling. _

 

" _ I am safe now, My Love. Safe with you. This is known." _

 

_ When he leaned in to kiss her, she let her eyes slide shut and savored the closeness and intimacy of the moment. They would never have a Happy Ending, but in these stolen moments she could close her eyes and pretend, and that would have to be enough. _

 

She stared at the building before her, Mr. Gold's Pawn Shop. It looked like any of the other buildings in Storybrooke: plain and unremarkable. She had nothing she desired to buy, sell or trade. She did not want to be here at all. Still, though, it had to be done. The Dark One lived in Storybrooke and he was just as devious and powerful as he'd ever been. Every story her people had ever told of his power had paled in comparison to reality. She was a fool to go to his place of business, his base of power. Her clan had told her she was a fool when she'd left them to be at Henry's side, to raise and protect Regina. 

 

Her clan elders had been right, she was a fool. A very brave fool with a past full of misdeeds, deception and a love so powerful that it had allowed her to transcend realms and conquer demons that would have felled others. As powerful as she had become, she was still a lovesick fool.

 

She stepped into the dim store and scowled at what she saw. Possessions, other people's prized possessions. She did not know every story, but she knew that these things did not belong to the Dark One. The lingering auras of the carefully displayed possessions were plain to her eyes. She saw the cursed parents of the man named Marco, and a dead fairy's wand. She saw tragedy and treachery, all at so-called fair prices.

 

"Good Morning" The voice, one that often echoed in her nightmares, came from behind a curtain.  "Is there something specific you are looking for-"

 

His words cut off and the man stopped mid-stride. Genuine shock lined his very human face. He did not look like The Dark One. He looked like a man with a cane. His skin was neither scaled nor golden, but his eyes were the same: cagey, calculating and cruel.

 

"Come for the funeral, Dearie?" His head cocked to the side and he walked, limped, out from behind the high glass counter.

 

"There has been no death."

 

He laughed, high and cold, and that was familiar."Well I hate to inform you but your precious-" He tittered, "What did you call her? Starling, Blue Jay, Albatross, ah yes, Nightingale. Your Little Nightingale is dead, Gypsy. She killed herself to help usher her longtime rivals home. A wasteful, unnecessary, very painful death, I assure you."

 

She only raised a brow and picked an invisible piece of dust off of her cloak. "You have been misinformed, Dark One. Regina is alive and very well. We had tea this morning before she left her home to see to some things in town."

 

"That's impossible, Dearie. No one could survive that curse.  _ I _ cast it."

 

His confidence was as astounding as it was faulty.

 

"My Nightingale did. This is known, to all but you it seems." With her help, but he need not know that detail.

 

If he was surprised, he hid it well. She didn't bother to look at him, she instead walked around the room. She touched the items and let the auras tell her their stories.

 

She paused when she came to the baby's mobile, it was made of glass beads and carefully formed and beautifully detailed glass unicorns. She let her fingers tangle in the beads and allowed the item's aura to wash over her. This had been meant for Emma Swan.

 

"So Her Majesty survived. That begs the question of your presence then. You struck a deal with Cora all those years ago. You swore a blood oath and a Romani never breaks their word. To break a blood oath would quite literally kill you."

 

She looked at him over her shoulder, "And yet I live."

 

He came closer, she could hear his cane tap the floor with every step. "You're still too brave for your own good, Esmeralda."

 

She turned slowly on her bare heel, "And you're still a coward, Rumplestiltskin."

 

His fist tightened around the handle of his cane, as if he wanted to swing it at her.

 

"I won't have to do anything, Dearie. Cora will hunt you down and kill you for breaking your deal with her."

Her eyes narrowed and rage caught fire in her chest, "I" Her words were just as hot as the inferno of anger in her, "did not break our deal.  _ She _ did. Now I am back at Regina's side and I will let nothing and no one hurt her."

 

This was the only warning she was going to issue him.

 

"I will stand against Cora. She will not hurt My Nightingale ever again."

 

He smiled, it was a slow and crooked gesture that sat uneasily on his face. "You and what army, Dearie?"

 

Esmeralda felt her own lips tug into a small smirk, "I need no army."

She walked back toward the door, "Interfere and you will meet your end, Rumplestiltskn."  Her voice was cold and hard, and she meant every word she said. This was no threat, it was a promise.

 

"We'll see, Gypsy."

 

She left his shop without uttering another word. As soon as she was outside, in the sunshine, she let out the breath she had been holding for what felt like ever.

 

The Dark One was just as powerful, devious and intimidating as he'd ever been. She still did not fear him, but knew that her provocation had been a silly mistake. She had let her pride take over and it would most likely prove to be a costly mistake. She had traveled the realms and had never met a more dangerous and powerful being. She knew better then to jab at him. It was like attacking a giant with a pen-knife. Still, though, she could not stop herself from doing so.

 

"I am still a fool, Henry." She spoke to the wind and knew that it carried her words to her long dead love. She only hoped, for Regina's sake, that her foolish actions played out as she hoped they would.

 

* * *

 

 

How dare she? How dare that disgusting Gypsy trollop come into his space and threaten him? He was the Dark One. If the Romani had a devil, that would be him. Esmeralda should have been pissing her skirts, terrified of him. Cowed and reduced to a shivering mass of goo in his presence. He should have killed her years ago, when he'd had her throat in his hand.

Now she was stronger and more confident, and her dedication to Regina had not wavered a bit. 

 

Regina. How had the woman survived? She should be dead and gone, a lifeless corpse cloaked in Prada. The spell had been incredibly powerful and deadly. He knew death magic, it was as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of boots. He rubbed his hand across his chin and thought for a moment. If it had been him, how would he have saved himself?

 

Well, obviously he would have syphoned the curse into some other, unsuspecting, person and have them die in his place. If Regina had studied enough magical theory, and he wasn't quite sure if she had or not, she might have been able to repurpose the magic, but the result would have been something very large. Too large for him not to notice. No, something had to have happened. Perhaps she had access to a magic wand. Regina's crypt was just chock full of goodies from the Enchanted Forest, so it was possible.

How she survived was a puzzle he could solve later. 

 

He limped to the back of his shop and sat at his spinning wheel. He ran his hand over the smooth and familiar wood of the wheel and let his thoughts wander. How was this going to play out? Cora would undoubtedly want Regina at her side, whether her daughter wanted to be there or not. Hook would come to him, petty revenge on his mind. The Charmings would try to save the day and the rest of the town would fall in line. Or so Charming and Snow assumed they would. 

 

He, on the other hand, could read the writing on the wall, or in the newspaper as it was. Now that the other Kings and Queens of Storybrooke were awake and aware again, they were not content to kneel before Snow White and her True Love. George, who had escaped incarceration by hook, crook and, of course a deal, had thrown down the gauntlet. Well, he had metaphorically slapped Charming in the face with it. David Nolan, nee Prince Charming, wouldn't let that go without retaliation. He had little in the way of tact or tactics. He would rush, like an angry bull, at George. Which was exactly what George wanted him to do.

 

Only George was not quite smart enough to pull this off on his own. No, this positively reeked of Stephen and Leah. More specifically, Leah. Stephen might sit on the throne, but it was no secret that Leah was the real ruler. She had been born and raised in the viper pit of nobility and had taken to politics well. She was educated, sly and light handed. Most people didn't realize she was toying with them until they found themselves penniless, in a dungeon and facing the executioner's ax. Just look, he chuckled to himself, what she had done to Maleficent. Now that had been a true coup, a masterful manipulation, and a great deal of fun to watch.

 

He was usually content to watch the Royals fight it out, scheming and warring until they were too exhausted and bloody to do anything but marry off two youngsters for peace. This time it might interfere with his plans, though, and that simply would not do. He was too close to finding Baelfire to let a Civil War stop him now.

  
Civil Wars, Gypsies, Regina's miraculous survival. It was only 12:30 and he'd already had a busy day. Such was the life, he supposed, of The Dark One.


	15. Chapter XIV: Trespassers

Chapter XIV

Trespassers

 

Killian Jones was a patient man. He had spent lifetimes biding his time, waiting for his chance to skin his crocodile. The injustice of his beloved Milah's death screamed to be set right. It burnt in his veins like cheap rum.

Even today, hundreds of years later, he could see the look on her beautiful face, the horrified agony when the filthy monster had put his hand in her chest and taken out her beautiful heart. His Milah's precious, still beating heart. 

 

He still had scars on his chest where he had fought against the rigging that had magically wrapped around him. He had fought so hard to get to her, to stop Rumplestiltskin from hurting her. The hook, the first thing he had laid his hand upon, had freed him. It was no small irony that he had chosen it to replace his severed hand. Had it always been attached to his wrist he would have released himself in time. Only, he'd had two hands of flesh and blood and he'd been too slow. Too late, he had been too late.

 

He had caught her body, the sweet, supple body that he had mapped so many times with his hands and mouth, and he had held her. If he had only known, in that second, that it would be the last time, he would have held her all the tighter and he would have never let go. She had touched his face, and looked into his eyes that had been his entire world for that last precious moment.

 

"I love you" 

 

Her last words had been her sweet confession of love for him. An orphaned brigand with no claim to fame or position in the world and she had loved him. Why, he had asked himself more times then there were stars in the sky, had he not told her that he loved her too? Just then as he held her in his arms, why had he let his sweet lover die without telling her that he loved her one last time? Then she had been gone. A final gasp and shudder then she had been limp in his arms, her heart dust in the wind. The Demon, the Crocodile, told him that he wanted him to suffer, like he had suffered.

 

Rumplestiltskin, the murderous coward, could not have suffered, not like he had. He could not have loved Milah because his heart was black and his soul was foul. He had smothered her free spirit and had almost killed the light in her beautiful eyes long before he had crushed her heart. Milah had never been meant for a mundane life as a wife and mother. She, like him, had been born for adventure. She was his heart, his siren, his beloved Pirate Queen. His Milah had been everything to him. Take his hand, take his ship, take the very sea from beneath him, as long as she'd been at his side, he would have been happy.

 

The Demon had wanted him to suffer? Suffer he had. No matter how many whores he took to bed, no matter how much alcohol he drank, no matter how many men he killed, his love for Miah still burned in his soul, ever bright and as strong as it had always been. She was his strength, she was his weakness. She was his only joy and his deepest despair. She was, if you believed the stories, his One True Love.

 

The Crocodile had taken her, killed the other half of his soul. The good half, the half that had been capable of love and life. Now all he had left was his revenge. His glorious revenge, blood retribution for Milah.

 

He had waited long enough. He knew, because Cora had told him in that cold, mocking voice that she favored, that the only way to kill The Demon was to puncture his coal black heart with his own enchanted dagger. A steel hook simply wouldn't do, Cora had tutted him.

 

So in the early morning light he stalked across the quaint seaside village of Storybrooke with one destination in mind. The Demon's haven, his little shop. He'd watched the Gypsy visit it the day before through his spy glass. She was a brave thing, not scared of The Dark One, not scared of Cora. There was a thin line between bravery and stupidity and the Gypsy had crossed it long ago. Then again, so had he. His quest for revenge had consumed him, nothing else mattered and his narrow-vision had cost him but he dared not stop. To stop would be to let Milah go, to betray her memory, to abandon his love for her. He could not do that, not then and not now.

 

Now he had a purpose, a clear step to take in his quest. He had to find the dagger and where else would a coward hide his only weakness? In his safe place, his castle, his beloved little shop full of odds, ends and magical potions. Mister Gold, what a fitting name for the man. His skin, cracked like a crocodile's, had a goldish tint to it. Fool's gold, a hideous shade of mottled and unhealthy yellow. His evil oozed through his very skin, marking him for all the world to see. A yellow-skinned coward with cold eyes and blood on his hands. Milah's blood.

 

The glass door broke easily under his hook. He could have picked the lock just as easily, but he wants to unleash some of his pent-up fury. A little destruction would do his soul good. Milah had always chuckled when he'd indulged his violent streak. He was, after all, a pirate, she'd said time and time again. He stepped inside and smirked at the sound of his boots crunching the recently shattered glass. 

 

It was dim, the only light came through the windows. Still, though, it was more than enough light to search by. He moved through the room, kicking things out of his way as he went. Useless items that meant nothing to no one, he supposed. He wrapped his gleaming hook around a string of crystal beads and unicorns. A baby's mobile, how sweet. He ripped the strands hard enough to snap them and watched the unicorns fall to the polished wood floor and shatter. He walked towards the counter, pausing only long enough to deliver hard kicks to each of the glass display cases. More glass tinkled and fell, and he crunched over it. 

 

The register was ornate and over-decorated, but not particularly safe. He wrenched it open in two strikes and scowled at what he saw: paper script and small grubby coins that probably weren't worth the metal the kings' faces were stamped upon. No enchanted dagger. Pity that, he would just need to keep looking. He walked through the room, tearing things off of shelves, running the tip of his hook through the canvas of paintings on the wall, ruining them. Still no dagger.

 

He stepped into the shop's backroom and felt fury burn through him. The spinning wheel. Milah had told him of the spinning wheel and how it had come to represent everything she had loathed about her life. It was a woman's trade and a coward's tool. His hook jerked thanks to a twitch of his long gone hand. The hand that Milah had held, the hand that had curled in her raven locks, the hand that Rumplestiltskin had cut off with a cackle. A cold smile spread across his bearded face. He may not find the dagger, but he would destroy this shackle and chain that had held his Milah prisoner for so many years.

He kicked it over and the wood hit the floor with a satisfying crack. He did not indulge his rage often, he controlled it and his pain with a tight grip. He softened his fury with smarmy remarks and innuendo. He had always had a smoldering ruffian's charm that had been one of the things Milah had been attracted to. There was no need for that here. He brought his boot down on one of the spokes and chuckled when it broke. He systematically tore the large wheel apart using his boots and hook. How she had hated it, the drudgery and monotony of endless days spent spinning. The only thing she'd ever regretted leaving behind was Baelfire. He brought his boot down on the spinning wheel's broad frame once, twice, three times and it splintered and cracked under his heel.

 

Baelfire, whom he had betrayed to The Lost Ones. Baelfire who hated him, who had hated his mother for abandoning him. The boy hadn't seen the misery in her eyes, the desperation. Had they not run away together on the Jolly Roger, Milah would have abandoned her son anyway. She had told him, years ago wrapped in his arms that she had been planning to take her own life. The coward's way out, she'd said mirthlessly, just like the husband she'd loathed. Rumplestiltskin had been a soul-sucking demon long before he'd become the Dark One. He grabbed the spinning wheel's needle off of the floor and moved away from the decimated remains of Milah's servitude. He moved through the room, destroying glass vials, tossing them and watching little puffs of smoke rise, magic wasted.

 

He opened a cabinet and tore through it. Tossing things negligently over his shoulder. Rubbish: papers full of incomprehensible scribbling, more glass vials and books. A wooden box, small and flat caught his attention. It was too small to be the dagger, but he opened it anyway. He had always been a curious little wretch. It was another bottle with a clear liquid in it. He scoffed, it probably wasn't even alcohol. He hurled it against the wall and smiled as the small vial shattered. He tossed the box to the ground and didn't bother to read the small, neat inscription on the inside of the wooden lid: "Tear of a Raped Maiden".

 

He was not going to find the dagger here. It was not even in the laughably easy to break safe. This merry-making was an enjoyable but ultimately fruitless endeavor. He could continue to make a mess, but there was little point to it now. He walked back out into the shop's main room and reveled in his destruction. He could almost hear Milah's rum-soaked laughter in his ear. Milah. He reached into his coat and removed the drawing. The pen and ink sketch that he'd kept by his heart since the day Bae had thrown in back at him, contempt on his young face. He caressed the line of her cheek on the page. This was all for her. The needle was still in his hand and he looked at the counter and searched for a clean place amongst the broken glass. The register, right where the bloody crocodile could see it. See it and know that his death was coming, that Killian Jones was coming for him. He wanted the sniveling coward to know that Milah was remembered and would be avenged. He pushed the needle through the parchment lovingly, and carefully. He couldn't bear to injure the only likeness of Milah left in any world. Then he shoved the needle into the cash register's metal side. The sound of steel crashing against and through steel was as musical as Milah's voice had been. 

 

He left the shop without a glance backwards. He didn't need the drawing, he saw his love every time he closed his eyes. He saw her perfect face staring up at him, pain written in her eyes, her last breath hitching in her chest.

Rumplestiltskin would pay and so would anyone else who dared to try and stop him.

 

* * *

 

 

The Storybrooke Free Public Library had suffered from twenty-eight years of benign neglect. The curse had maintained the building, but its contents had not been updated since its magical creation in 1983. 

 

Still, it was Belle's domain and she had gone over every inch of it, scrubbed it down, organized and catalogued it, and she loved it. Truly and dearly, she loved her library and couldn't wait to open it so all the citizens of Storybrooke could love it just as much as she did. 

 

She had not lied to Lia Weathersby, there was a very healthy budget to work with. She had stayed up several late nights and balanced it as best she could. If she watched every penny she could bring the reference section up to date, double the size of the children's and young adult selections and tackle at least part of the adult section. Books had not come in so many varieties in their old world. The sheer number of authors and their works was staggering. Not that this world's books were the only thing in the library. She had combed through the stacks and had several volumes set aside for a different sort of collection. Books from their homeland had been brought over. Histories, genealogies, reports and records from the Ogre Wars, religious texts, romances, poetry. The things she had grown up reading, leather bound and familiar. 

 

There were also books about magic. Not spell books, exactly, but books of mythology and lore, tales of the fantastic and records of sorcerers and sorceresses of the past. These were the books that made her uncomfortable. Which was silly, she had lived with The Dark One, she shouldn't let a little magic scare her. She was scared, though. Yet she was in the Special Collections Room with Mulan pouring over thick tomes and volumes looking for any information that might help them save Prince Phillip.

 

Mulan was on the yellow and white tile floor, legs folded under her. She frowned in concentration as she looked through one of the many books they had found with information on wraiths. They were very mysterious creatures, dark and deadly, feared by almost every culture. Belle thought they looked like Dementors from the delightful Harry Potter books she had read. Though there were many entries in the books about wraiths, they often said the exact same things. They were soul devourers that were linked to a twin-set of medallions. One rode on the Wraith itself and the other marked the victim. Phillip had been marked and when Regina had opened the portal to their Old Realm she had, unwittingly, sent the Wraith strait to Phillip. 

 

She wondered if Mulan knew that the wraith's sudden reappearance in The Enchanted Forest was due to the Mayor's actions. She doubted it. If Mulan knew, she would be at the big white mansion on Mifflin street and not here. She looked very different, dressed in Storybrooke's modern attire. It was her attitude, the stoic quiet and seriousness that remained exactly the same. Mulan was a warrior through and through: strong, brave and loyal. She spoke best, she had once told Belle, with her sword.

 

"Here. This says" Mulan brought the book closer to her face, "That a perfect circle of silver, salt and-"She scowled at the book.

 

Belle left the table where she had been pouring over old yellowed parchments and leaned over to see what Mulan was struggling with. "Sage. It's an herb."

 

Mulan nodded her thanks and Belle watched her silently mouth the word over and over, as if committing to memory.

 

"A perfect circle of silver, salt and  _ sage _ will protect those inside of it from a wraith."

 

Belle looked around for the notepad where she'd jotted down anything useful and scribbled down that bit of information. It was good to know that there was something less destructive than fire that would stop the wraith from sucking their souls away. What she really needed was a good patronus spell, but magic was not as simple as that. Life, unfortunately, wasn't as simple as that. The villains didn't always wear black and everyone that wore black wasn't always a villain. Even villains, the darkest and bloodiest of them, had good sides. People weren't sorted into four houses and there were no benevolent half-giants to make sure you were okay. There were only Kings and Queens, she scowled at the memory of the newspaper article, and their battles for dominance.

 

"You seem distracted."

 

Belle blinked and refocused her attention on her companion. "I, yes, a little I suppose."

 

Mulan frowned, "You need to be extra vigilant. Hook and Cora are ruthless and with your connection to The Dark One, you are an obvious target."

 

Disgust rose in her throat, she remembered Hook all too well. "I've dealt with Hook before. He doesn't scare me."

 

Mulan unfolded her legs and stood. "He took Aurora's heart. He is more dangerous than he appears to be and Cora is more dangerous still."

 

Cora, she knew, was Regina's mother, and apparently she was very bad news. She was worse than The Evil Queen, if the rumors were to be believed. The Voldemort to Regina's Malfoy.

 

"I don't think Cora would be interested in me. I'm just a librarian."

 

Mulan crossed her arms over her chest, "You are not just a librarian. You are clever, resourceful and you were the prisoner of The Dark One and The Evil Queen and lived to tell the tale. Not many people can say the same." The Chinese Warrior stepped closer, "but trust me when I say that you are no match for Cora. I am no match for Cora. Emma Swan was the only person who was able to stop her and she used magic."

 

Emma had magic?

 

"So if either Hook or Cora comes near, run."

 

Two hands fell on her shoulders and she found herself staring into dark almond eyes. "Promise me."

 

Belle shifted uncomfortably, "Running would make me a coward."

 

Mulan gave her a shake, "And not running will get you killed, or worse."

 

Belle shrugged out of her grasp, "Fine."

 

Mulan let her arms drop, "If you will not listen to me, maybe I should get your other friend to speak sense to you. Would you listen if your Ruby told you to run?"

 

Ruby. Belle felt a little lurch in her chest. She  _ had _ told her to run, during the last full moon. Belle hadn't. She had refused to abandon Ruby in her hour of need. So the other woman had shackled her up and left instead. She had been locked in her own library, worried sick that a mob would corner the woman in her wolf form and kill her. That exact thing had almost happened. Thank God for David Nolan, he had saved the foolhardy, beautiful, too-noble-for-he-own-good wolf woman.

 

"I don't let anyone dictate my decisions." Anymore, at least.

 

If she had blinked, she would have missed it, a fast and small smile crossed Mulan's face.

 

"I saw how you interacted with her, she is not just anyone to you."

 

Oh this conversation was not happening.  "Don't be ridiculous."

 

Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the earlier conversation about Cora and Hook, but when the chimes at the front door rang, Belle jumped. Mulan, of course, did not jump. She twisted with a fighter's instinct and drew her sword, ready to fight.

 

"I thought you said that your library was not open yet."

 

She had and it wasn't.

 

"It might be Marco, I asked him to build some tables and chairs for the second floor."

 

She knew, in her gut, it wasn't Marco.

 

"We will see."

 

The Special Collections Room had originally been a conference room of some kind and it was at the back of the building. She could hear something, someone moving around. The noise echoed through the building. Mulan 

moved silently along the shelves, sword out and ready.

 

"Hello?"

 

Fear made her heart beat a little faster. Nightmare images of Hook and Cora and hearts being ripped from their chests played in her imagination.

 

"We're not open quite yet." Which the opening soon signs should have told them. There was no answer beside the door chime going off again, indicating whoever had come, had gone. Or that their accomplice had joined them. Adrenaline pumped into Belle's system and she told herself that she was not afraid. She was a very bad liar. Mulan reached the front before she did, and she could hear the other woman's boots come to an abrupt halt.

 

"Belle, you should come see this."

 

The Warrior's voice was flat and visions of heartless corpses, she unfortunately knew what one of those looked like thanks to Rumple, danced in her head. When she turned the corner, though, there was nothing. No pile of bodies, no crystallized hearts. No Cora, no Hook. It was just her pristine and orderly library. Mulan's sword was aloft and pointed at the circulation desk. Belle turned her head and prepared for the worst. 

 

There was a plate sitting on the counter and a glass beside it. She stepped closer, and found herself smiling. It was a hamburger from Granny's with all of her favorite fixings and a large order of fries and a glass of iced tea with lemon that was still cold enough to have condensation on the glass. If that wasn't enough, the word "sorry" was spelled out in ketchup on the fries.

Ruby. How could she stay mad at the woman?

 

She couldn't help but smile and could hear Mulan give a small chuckle.

 

"Oh shut up."

 

* * *

 

 

Purple mist filled the foyer of 108 Mifflin Street. Cora Mills looked around, and took in her new surroundings and sneered. Neither Regina nor Esmeralda had bothered to cast even the most basic protective spells or wards. She was not surprised at the Gypsy whore's incompetence, but expected better of Regina. 

 

Then again, why bother? She had given Regina a castle and she had traded it for little more than a hovel on a hill. If this curse was supposed to be her "Happily Ever After" then Regina had less imagination than she did magical ability. She lived in a laughably small house with no servants in a tiny, rebellious fiefdom that had forgotten who their Queen was. Regina had let them forget. She had, apparently, been content to be a mayor, lower than the lowest Lord. She had always thought so small.

 

Cora began to walk through the home, taking in every detail. There was not enough color. Everything was black and white, utterly boring. A splash of red always made things more interesting. She loved the vibrant play of red blood on white skin.  It had become one of her favorite color schemes in Wonderland. The realm her dear daughter had banished her too. It would have driven a lesser woman to the brink of madness. Cora was strong and she had not bent or broken, she had twisted the realm to her liking, brought in under her control. The self-righteous citizens of Storybrooke would fall to their knees just as quickly. Regina may have let them run amok and mock her power, but Cora would show them what a true "evil queen" could do.

 

She walked through the living areas, and avoided the kitchen. That was a room for servants, not queens. She had tried to teach Regina that over and over again, but some lessons never took, no matter how harshly they were delivered. She ran her fingers along plush furniture. This realm was so odd, so full of marvels and comforts. Things that she'd never imagined before, and she had imagined a great many bloody and glorious things. Perhaps Regina's Storybrooke was not all that bad.

 

She picked up a small portrait, the artists here were very good the image was extremely life-like. Her daughter, hair boyishly short, and her smiling grandson. Adopted grandson, Cora amended. Regina shared the boy with the infuriating Emma Swan. It was, apparently complicated. Was  _ that  _ what they called it here? It hadn't seemed very complicated last night when the So-Called-Savior had put her hands on Regina and held her close. It had not sounded so complicated when the blonde had tried to soothe Regina's very legitimate fears. Pulling Regina's hand to her heart hadn't been so complicated, it had been intimate, personal, a lover's touch.

 

Her daughter had learned  _ nothing _ . These little infatuations and dreams of true love were pointless and would only end in disaster. Love is weakness. Regina's taste had not improved. Stable Boys, huntsmen and now a lowly lawman. A sheriff with a royal pedigree, but a peasant's ways. Not to mention that she was the granddaughter of Regina's dearly departed husband. That was a tad too scandalous, even for her admittedly eclectic tastes. Not to mention she had given birth to a child out-of-wedlock. That little blunder marked her as someone without proper morals, or at least as a fool without enough sense to rid herself of her shame after rutting around like a common prostitute.

 

Her shame, though, had become Regina's joy, her beloved son. Cora ran her fingers over the two faces in the portrait, her weakness. She had named the boy after her father, typical. What had Henry ever done for her? What had he sacrificed? His life, his weak and cowardly heart, was the only thing he had ever given her, it had been the least he could do. She had been the one who had ripped her own heart out to provide Regina with her chance at greatness. A chance the foolish girl had squandered. Her enemies, darling Snow and her charming prince, were still alive and well. They had, once again, wrenched Regina's power from her grasp and flaunted it in her face.

 

How could Regina tolerate the humiliation? How dare she let them humiliate her? It wasn't tolerable, it wasn't how a queen should act. She should have squashed both of them under her heel, crushed their hearts to dust, and reminded all of her people exactly who was in charge. Since her daughter was too weak to do it, Cora would have to. Mother always knew best, and it was time Regina was reminded of that. 

 

Cora went up the stairs, and let her hand slide along the polished banister. She went through the upstairs rooms one by one. The room that reeked of cinnamon and gypsy magic had to belong to Esmeralda. Cora resisted the urge to set the room on fire. She had no desire to leave a mess behind her. That would be crude, sloppy, and it would only let Regina know how close she was. Her daughter was not ready to embrace her yet, she would have to continue to bide her time. All good things came to those who took them, but the time had to be right. 

 

The next room was messy and full of what she supposed passed as playthings in this new realm. Playthings, books and paper drawings. Henry's room, she supposed. 

 

That only left her daughter's chambers.  White, her daughter's chambers were almost blindingly white. White walls, a white bed, white linens, there were touches of color here and there but the overwhelming cleanliness of white dominated the room. Even the unrelieved black of her castle had been better than this. 

 

She wandered into the large walk in closet. Here was where color lived in the house: Blacks, grays, reds, royal purples and smoky blues. All these styles were so different. There were trousers and skirts that were cut far shorter than had ever been permitted in their world. There were no long gowns, no corsets and no cloaks. An entirely different wardrobe for an entirely different place.

 

A mirror dominated the back wall of the closet and Cora stared at it for a moment. Regina's obsessions with mirrors was somewhat disgusting. Vanity had its place, but beauty faded, only power remained. She watched the violet smoke consumer her and in the blink of an eye the mirror reflected a different face. Emma Swan stared back at her from the mirror. Young, cocky, more powerful then she realized and too stupid to take advantage of it. She tilted her head from side to side. 

 

Her shape-shifting spell was second nature to her, but taking on a new form always took a moment or two of practice, just to get things exactly right. Smoke filled the closet again and the form she wore was more rugged, clad in leather and foreign. The Eastern Warrior she had fought at Lake Nostos was not known very well here, which meant that none would realize that she was being impersonated. 

 

Not that people had ever caught on to her machinations before. She changed forms again, as easy as breathing, and the face of her daughter appeared in the mirror. The short hair, the red lips and the scar that marred them, Regina was an easy form to take.

 

Manipulation was something she excelled at, she had learned from the master himself. She couldn't see the future like dear Rumple, but she knew very well that there was a reckoning coming. So many royals in one small town would never live peacefully. There were too many power-mongers and not enough power. They would fight amongst themselves, and tire out their resources, so when she was ready it would be easy. With her daughter at her side, it would be a bloodbath.

  
She smiled and in the mirror Regina smiled back. Her daughter would be hers again and the town, and everything and everyone in it would be theirs. Cora disappeared leaving only amethyst smoke and an echo of a cold chuckle behind.


	16. Chapter XV: Unexpected Discoveries

Chapter XV

Unexpected Discoveries

 

Henry stabbed his macaroni and cheese with his fork and scowled at it. His Mo-Regina's macaroni and cheese was better. She made it with three kinds of cheese and the swirly pasta that came in different colors and it always had this really yummy crust on it because she baked it. Well, at least the school lunch ladies hadn't burnt it. Em-his real mom had actually set a pot of macaroni and cheese, from a box, on fire. Snow had run in and poured baking soda on it and fixed it, but still it had been on _ fire _ . He half-heartedly picked at the rest of his food, no more appetizing than the macaroni, and flipped through his book.

 

No Mulan, no Aurora, no Hook, no Cora and no Esmeralda. He blew out a puff of frustrated breath. His book had never let him down before. It had always had the answers he needed. He pushed his fingers through his hair. He already knew Aurora's story, and Mulan seemed like a good guy, well girl. He really wanted to know about Cora, Hook and especially Esmeralda. He didn't care what Regina said, he knew she was bad. Regina was the Evil Queen and if Esmeralda liked her, she had to be evil too. He just wished he knew who she was. She had to have a story. He flipped through the pages he had looked at a thousand times already and knew there was nothing there.

 

"So that's the famous book?"

 

He looked up sharply, he ate lunch alone, and nobody ever talked to him.

Gretel, or Ava as she demanded to be called, stared down at him and his book. Henry looked around and didn't see Nick, or Hansel.

 

"He's off with his friends. We don't always have to be together." Ava answered the question without his asking it and he felt foolish for even thinking it in the first place.

 

Ava sat down beside him without asking and plopped her tray on the other side of the book. "So the curse is broken, why are you still lugging that thing around?"

No one, besides Emma and Archie, had ever cared about the book or his interest in it. It was kind of neat but weird. What could it hurt, though? No one thought he was crazy anymore.

 

"I'm trying to figure out who the Gypsy Esmeralda is. She got here with Mulan and Aurora and I think she might be evil."

 

"I thought the pirate and the witch were the evil ones."

 

Henry blinked, how had Ava known about Cora and Hook?

 

"Everyone knows, Henry. It's kind of a small town and the Dwarves all have really big mouths." She shrugged, "Well except for Doc, I mean."

 

Ava tossed her blonde braid over her shoulder. "But seriously, you haven't figured it out yet?" She rolled her eyes, "And you're supposed to be some sort of genius with this stuff."

 

He slammed his book shut, "Oh and  _ you  _ know who she is?" Ava hadn't even known who _ she _ was until his mom broke the curse.

 

"Duh."

 

He crossed his arms over his book and raised a single eyebrow. He had spent weeks and weeks practicing the move in the mirror when he'd been six. He knew it was silly, but at the time he'd wanted to be able to raise his eyebrow because his mo-Regina did so often. Now that he was older, and wiser, he knew that this particular Evil Queen movement intimidated people. She did it to make people tell her things she wanted to know, even if they didn't want to tell her.

 

"Stop that!"

 

A hard punch landed on his shoulder and he jerked away, "Ow!"

 

"You look like  _ her  _ when you do that."

 

Apparently he had gotten a little too good at raising his eyebrow. "Sorry."

Ava stood up, "Whatever. If you're too stupid to have figured it out by now, then I'm not going to tell you."

 

He was not stupid.

 

"Fine, whatever. I'll figure it out. I was the one who figured out the curse anyway. No thanks to any of you."

 

She looked like she was about to punch him again. "You only figured it out because someone gave you that stupid book. If you hadn't had that you would still be a confused little boy who's upset because he found out he was adopted. Boo-hoo, poor little rich kid who has everything but a Daddy. You would have never made it out on your own. Not like Nick and I had to. Not without your  _ mommy _ to hold your hand."

 

Henry jumped up so fast he knocked his chair back, "Shut up!"

 

He could see Hansel heading towards them, he could also see the lunch monitor three tables away and walking closer.

 

"You may be adopted, but you sure have  _ her   _ temper." Ava turned to leave, "You won't find your answer in that stupid book anyway. Wake up and join the twenty first century, Henry. I mean, honestly, the school has, like, every Disney movie ever made." She smirked, "Well except for  _ Snow White _ , of course."

 

He looked over at the lunch monitor, "But we can't check out the movies, only teachers can."

 

Ava plucked his pudding cup off of his tray, "You're a double-prince, why do you have to ask permission?"

 

A double prince? Oh yeah, he was the grandson of Snow White and he had been adopted by The Evil Queen. He was sort of a double prince. Cool.

That idea distracted him enough so that he didn't even mind that Ava had stolen his desert. He could sneak into the AV Room during recess. Mrs. Potts wasn't nearly as good as watching them on the playground as Miss Blanc-his grandma had been. That was okay, though, he was still pretty good at forging Mary Margaret Blanchard's signature to check out the DVD when he found it. He even back-dated the check-out to before the curse broke so no one would be the wiser. Stupid, huh. Yeah right.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma eyed the newspaper warily, like it was some kind of beast sitting on her desk. She wanted to read it, but felt like it was a trap. David had been really pissed about yesterday's article and she couldn't handle another Prince Charming melt down tonight. The man had said words that Emma hadn't even known existed, but she was pretty sure she should have covered Henry's ears.

 

She had heard Snow and David arguing about it late into the night. She hadn't even been able to escape the argument by plugging into YouTube because Henry had hijacked her laptop to watch some cartoon. Damn Kid had totally ganked her stuff and she had really needed to watch some dudes get whacked in the balls repeatedly. 

 

The charming argument had ended eventually with what she assumed were charming kisses and hugs, because her parents were apparently practically perfect in every way. They set the bar really freaking high: True Love, a fairy tale romance that stretched through time, comas and dreams, they had the whole package. Most of the time she had just wanted to make sure her dates weren't high, on the run from the cops, or ax murderers.

 

Not that the paper had portrayed David and Snow as the picture-perfect couple. Oh no,  _ The Daily Mirror _ had turned it into an arc from one of the soaps her foster-mothers had all seemed to enjoy. There had been betrayal and treason, underhanded deals, pre-marital sex, sword fights, bloodlust, and a surprising amount of trickery. Plus, apparently David was a twin, which made her very glad that there was only one of Henry. 

 

She had to hand it to the writer, he certainly had a flair for the dramatic. Daniel S. Glyss definitely had an inside track on what was what in Storybrooke. Of course, he had been Regina's pet weasel for twenty-eight years, so that was not surprising. Why did crooks always think scrambling the letters of their names around made for such good cover-names? She'd figured out that trick years and years ago. Was Sidney working for Regina again, or was it something else?

 

She bit the bullet and picked up the paper. The front page was dedicated to Princess Aurora's arrival in Storybrooke and how happy her parents were to have her home. There was a small mention of Mulan, and Prince Phillip, and even a line or two about her and Snow. Nothing scandalous or noteworthy. Mr. Glyss, and wow had he dropped the ball on that last name or what, seemed pretty copacetic today.

 

She propped her boots up on the corner of her desk and leafed through the paper, just to make sure another scathing article hadn't been tucked away in between recipes and hardware store ads. There was nothing, well there was a mention of her bar brawl in the crime blotter, but that was it.

 

Sidney had covered the Sheriff's Office for years, or so Regina had told her. Why wasn't there something more scandalous, or a snippy word about her performance? If Regina was trying to undermine them she'd missed a perfect opportunity. Except, Regina had said that she hadn't had anything to do with the article. Which was hard to believe, this was exactly Regina's sort of thing. 

 

So why did Emma believe her? Everything in her gut told her the brunette was innocent. It was hard to scheme against people when you were busy recovering from whatever it was that had Esmeralda so worried, finding out your sadistic mother was in town, and making up time with your long lost nanny.

 

Ugh, Emma sighed, Esmeralda. She'd heard all about the other woman's outburst at the Diner. On the one hand she was pissed. That was her Kid and her father, technically, that the woman had been talking to. On the other hand, she sort of admired the balls it took to stand up and say what she had said. She'd been alone in a room full of people that didn't like a damn word that had been coming out of her mouth and she'd said it anyway. That was her kind of woman. That must have been where Regina had gotten her stubborn streak. 

 

It was, Emma mused, amazing to watch the two together. There was less Evil Queen and more of something else in Regina lately. It was like there were two completely different people living at 108 Mifflin Street. The Mayor and Evil Queen, whose mother was Cora, and then there was Regina, Henry's mother, who had been raised by Esmeralda.

Wow, that was really complicated. Emma closed the paper and tossed it on the desk. Everything was complicated these days. She longed for the simpler days, when Pongo had been her biggest problem. When Operation Cobra had been a passing fantasy that The Kid would grow out of. When she had been able to ogle the mayor without worrying about fireballs flying at her.

 

"Hey Mom!"

 

Henry barreled in with Snow and David close behind. Her peace and quiet was immediately shattered, but that was okay. She didn't actually mind that much, anything to get her mind off of the whole Regina situation.

 

"How was school today, Kid?"

 

Henry shrugged, "It was okay, but tomorrow will be way better."

 

Okay, she'd bite. "What's so special about tomorrow?"

 

Snow chuckled, "The big Science Fair, Emma. Henry's project has won first place in his grade for the last three years running."

 

His project?

 

She forced herself to grin, "So what's your project on, Kid?" Cause he had done it at school and it was all ready to go, right?

 

"I dunno, we haven't done it yet. I thought we could put it together tonight."

 

We, as in her and him?  Okay, correction, she would much rather think about Regina. She didn't do science, or math or any subject other than lunch, recess, study hall and detention. She'd been a pro at detention. A real Nelson from the  _ Breakfast Club _ , only with blonde hair and girl parts.

 

"Oh, Kid, this sounds like a job for your grandmother. Like, as in her actual job."

 

She sent her best, her very freaking best, puppy dog eyes at Snow.

 

"Emma I can't help Henry with his project, I'm a teacher it would be unethical and unfair to the other students."

 

Okay, time to whip out the big guns. She fixed a pout on her face that had made grown men (Neal) melt into puddles of goo. "C'mon Snow, you got your teaching degree from Curse University, just bend the rules a little bit. For me and Henry."

 

"I got my degree" Snow, or Mary Margaret, narrowed her eyes, "from Saint Joseph's College of Maine, thank you very much."

 

Emma had blown that one big time. How was she supposed to have known that M.M. had crazy love for her imaginary college years? Well, the fifty-five thousand mugs, glasses and the ratty old tee-shirts should have been a clue. Strike One.

 

"David." She could totally be a Daddy's Girl if he helped her out.

 

Snow leveled a glare at her husband, though. He shrugged and smiled good naturedly before raising his fist in the air, "Go Monks." Strike Two.

 

"It'll be fun, Mom. We are supposed to do our project out of the Biology unit of our book!"

 

So that probably left out foam ball and hanger solar systems. Shit. She had failed Bio in high school twice. Strike Three, she was out. Double shit.

 

She looked to her parents again, in full panic mode now. She couldn't let the Kid down, but she was drowning here.

 

"I-uh, it's been a long time since I did a Science Fair project." Like the other side of never. "And we don't have a whole lot of time. Can't you just resubmit last year's project?"

 

Twin stares, one from her son and one from Snow, told her that her idea was not going to fly. She looked to David, but he had found a very interesting spot on the far wall to inspect thoroughly.

 

"Right."

Snow seemed to take this as an agreement and grinned, "Well, we'll let you two get to it! I can't wait to see what you're going to come up with."

She led David, the traitorous dog, out and that left her and Henry in the office.

 

"We're screwed, aren't we, Mom?"

 

No one could say that her kid wasn't smart.

 

"Totally."

 

She could not believe she was about to say this, but they only had one option at this point.

 

"We're going to have to bite the bullet on this one, Kid."

 

Henry plopped down in the chair in front of her desk, the one that wasn't filled with paperwork she was supposed to do sheriffy things with. "That sounds dangerous."

 

There was that sarcasm again.

 

"Kid you know there is only one person in town that can save our collective as-butts now."

 

Henry scowled, "You can't mean-"

 

Oh she did. She was just desperate enough to go to Plan R. R for Regina. 

 

"Kid, we're going to march our as-butts over there and beg like dogs for your mom to help us whip you up a last minute project."

 

"This sucks."

 

Emma agreed, the last thing she wanted to do was show up at Regina's and confess that she was a for-shit parent who couldn't help her son with a simple science project. If it helped Henry, though, she'd do it.

"C'mon, Captain Procrastination, let's go see your other mom."

 

* * *

 

 

Mayor Regina Mills had a standing order at Game of Thorns that was automatically charged to her Visa every week. If Maurice thought she hadn't noticed that she had started paying double for her dozen white roses after the curse broke, then he was a bigger idiot than she had always thought. Still, it didn't matter how much the roses cost, she would pay it. She always brought her Daddy white roses. They had been his favorite. She put the flowers on his tomb reverently, the same way she had every week for the past twenty-eight years. She came to see Daddy every week, more if there was something on her mind.

 

"Hello, Daddy."

 

She had started talking to him within two months of being in Storybrooke. He had been the  _ only _ person she'd had to talk to. For years he had been the only person in her life that she could trust. He had been the only person who had given a damn about her, and she'd killed him. She missed him so much, if there was one thing she could undo, just one, then she would go back and save her father from herself.

 

"I've brought someone to see you. Not Henry, he's still living with Emma Swan and the Charmings." She sighed at that statement, "He's still mad at me, Daddy. He called me evil in front of everyone, again." She was evil, but to hear it from Henry hurt her. It hurt like a knife in her already ragged heart every single time he said it.

 

"She wasn't dead, Daddy. She came back to me. She's here, in Storybrooke. Esmeralda came back."

 

Esmeralda had not brought flowers. She stepped up and laid her hands on the cold stone tomb. "Hello, Henry." A number of emotions played across Esmeralda's face and Regina felt her heart fall at the sight. She wasn't the only one who mourned her Daddy. Tears pricked behind her eyes and she wrapped her arms around herself. She always hurt those she cared about the most.

 

"I miss you, My Love."

  
It hit her like a slap to the face. She had known, since she was a tiny girl, that Daddy and Nan loved each other. Hearing it, though, was something completely different. Hearing Esmeralda call Daddy something so soft, gentle and heartfelt broke Regina's heart all over again.


	17. Chapter XVI:  Monsters and Daughters

Chapter XVI

Monsters and Daughters

 

Author’s Notes: _  Italics  _ indicate flashbacks. This story does not include canon past Season 2 and there is no Zelena.

 

_ Oz was a beautiful land, full of vibrant colors and cheerful people. Too bad it was all based on an elaborate lie, perpetuated by a con-man. She had sought out the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz in hopes that he would have the knowledge that she needed. Surely this renowned leader and magician would know of The Swan. He was no more great or powerful than any other man, though. He was a fraud and she had come to yet another dead-end. The Wizard, as the people of Oz called him, was clever but not magical. He was, in his own words, a humbug. Whatever that was. _

 

_ He had risen to power by accident and had held onto it by trickery even his home, the grandiose Emerald City, was an elaborate ruse. The green tinted glasses that people wore to protect their eyes were cheap parlor tricks that turned white to green. She had rremoved hers and refused to put them back on. Her eyes, the same color as the city claimed to be ,gave her natural protection, she had told them. A lie, of course, but a small, almost inconsequential one in a city full of falsehoods. _

 

_ She stood on a high balcony, eyes locked on the gleaming spires and towers of the city stretched out before her. Emerald or not, it was a true marvel to behold. _

 

" _ It is beautiful." _

 

_ The so-called Wizard stepped out onto the balcony with her.   _ " _ Sometimes, I forgot how beautiful it really is. When you live here, the glitter and glow fades into the background." _

 

_ She turned from the cityscape and faced the aging wizard, "Your scheme, this fantasy of the Wizard cannot last forever. All deceptions are eventually discovered, this is known." _

 

_ He nodded "And you've used your Gypsy magic to look into the future and seen my end?" _

 

_ She looked over the city again, "There will be a revolution, Humbug, a great upheaval and your reign will come to an abrupt end." _

 

_ He stepped closer and laid his hands on the balcony's ornamental banister, "The Witches?" _

 

_ She inclined her head, "A child. A girl with a brave and true heart will be Oz's savior and your downfall." _

 

" _ Ozma?" _

 

_ The name of the land's seeming immortal, and suspiciously absent, queen.   _ " _ No." She knew better than to reveal any more information to the Humbug. _

 

" _ You think I'll try to stop her." He sighed and rubbed his hands across his balding head. "I'm tired. Tired of being a ruler and a recluse. Tired of being a wizard. I welcome this child." _

 

_ She did not doubt that weary but imagined that his enthusiasm would last. Power was an intoxicant that few could resist and fewer still could leave behind. "Indeed." _

 

_ With that, he left her. He went back to his hidden chambers to tinker with the illusions and mechanical contraptions that had transformed him from man to wizard. She looked back to the city and lost herself in the grandeur spread before her. She had only beheld a sight like this once before and that had been a very long time ago. _

 

_ The pain that cut through her chest was not the familiar ache of bitter memories. It was sharp, sudden and it stole her breath away. She fell to her knees in agony but could not scream because her chest was too tight to produce a sound. She slid from her knees to sit on the cold marble floor of the balcony, glad that she was alone. _

 

" _ Henry." _

 

_ The pain, the soul wrenching, heart shuddering pain told her what she needed to know. The time had finally come. _

 

" _ You will give your very life…" Her own words, spoken to the man she loved with all her heart, came back to mock her. He was gone. Henry, her sweet and beautiful prince, was gone. He no longer traveled in the realm of the living, his journey had come to an end. _

 

_ She clutched her hand to her chest and could feel her own heart racing, and she imagined that the organ was crumbling to pieces in her chest. She had to know, she had to see. She scrambled for her book. She threw open it's ancient leather bindings and did not care that tears blotted its pages. _

 

_ The Romani know all that was, is and will be, or so people said. The truth of the matter was that her people valued the stories of a person's life. Every story, every life. Every journey had meaning and an effect on others. The Book of Romani recorded the stories of people's lives and worlds. Any place a member of a Romani clan visited, any person the spoke with, their stories were added to the endless collection housed in the Book of Romani. To be the keeper of the book of Romani was the highest honor given to any one person. She had not deserved the honor, but it had been bestowed on her anyway. _

_ She had used the honor to aid her on her quest. It was at best, an abuse of power and at worse, it was the darkest sacrilege and sin that she could commit. She would do it again and again if it would help her Nightingale. _

 

" _ Show me Regina." Her voice shook as she watched the words and accompanying illustrations swan into focus on the page. It only took a moment for fresh horror to bloom in Esmeralda's chest. _

_ Her Nightingale wore a dress that was as dark as her heart had become. She held the limp body of her father in her arms. A scream tore out of her tight throat as she read the truth. Regina's desperate need for revenge and happiness had become a sickness. A festering madness driven by bitter loss and constant sadness. She had finally broken, her Little One had fallen under the weight of her own grief. _

 

_ The illustration was enough to make Esmeralda's heart break anew. Regina reached into her own father's chest and took his heart as her sacrifice for the malevolent curse that the Dark one had given her. _

 

_ She was so lost and the darkness was eating her alive. A single tear was on her cheek. She loved her daddy so dearly, but even love had been eclipsed by her darkness. She felt, the book said, that she had no other choice. Her Nightingale killed her own father because she was utterly convinced that this Dark Curse was her only chance at happiness. _

 

" _ Oh, My Love, I hope your death was not in vain." _

 

_ She had known, always, that theirs was a doomed love but that did not lessen her pain. She wept a river of bitter, heartbroken tears. She wept for Henry, she wept for herself, she wept for the beautiful girl that they had raised and loved as if she had been born of their love and not of Henry's duty to his wife. She wept for the sweet baby that she had sang to sleep every night for almost ten years. She wept for the woman that she had grown into. The sad queen that she not been able to save. _

 

" _ I'm sorry, My Love, I am so sorry. I failed you. I failed our daughter. I failed." _

 

_ Her sobs overtook her and she drowned in her own tears. Esmeralda lost herself in her sorrow, regret and loss high above a glamorous city built on and of lies. _

 

Twenty-eight years and the pain was still as fresh in her heart as it had ever been. Henry had been her True Love. He was the only man she had ever given her body to and the only man to love her despite her many flaws. Henry had given her a child to love and a quest to complete. He had given her hope, and laughter and a true home in his arms. Even when they had been apart, his letters had been her guiding light in a world full of cruelty and disappointment. Their infrequent rendezvous had been like lush oasis in the vast desert of her travels. To be together had never been their destiny, but they had fought fate to the bitter end. She had been born to love Henry and he had been born to love her, he had died loving her and she would die still hopelessly in love with him. This was known.

 

She stepped forward and laid her hands on the cold stone of his tomb. It was real now. Henry's death was tangible and touchable and cold beneath her fingers. He had never been cold, her lover had always been warm and full of light and love for her.

 

"Hello Henry."

 

She had never stopped talking to him. Words were wind that travelled through all realms, even the realm of the dead. Though he was not with her in body, he had never left her or Regina in spirit. She had hoped against hope that one day they would be tighter again, the three of them a happy family. 

 

He had spoken so many times of running away in the night, riding fast and hard on his two best steeds with Regina wrapped up in a blanket and snuggled against her, asleep during their escape. That had been impossible, though, and they had both known it. Her control started to break.

 

"I miss you, My Love."

 

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears flooded her eyes and she bent down and laid a soft kiss on the cold stone tomb.

 

"May your journey be ever bright" The traditional words of mourning. "And may you wait for me at the crossroads." The traditional words of a widow.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

Esmeralda turned to see look at her Little One and saw devastation in the woman's eyes. She had wrapped her arms around herself and was trembling. Tears were falling down her face.

 

"I'm so sorry. I did this, Nan. I took him for you."

She straightened up because the dead did not need her comfort, and her Nightingale did.

 

"Shh it's okay."

 

She reached out to pull her close but was shoved away with enough force to make her stumble backwards.

 

"Don't touch me!"

 

Regina held her arms out, and looked at her with wide, wild eyes. "How can you touch me? How can you bare the sight of me? I killed him, Esmeralda. I killed Daddy. I took his heart and killed him. You  _ loved _ him and I murdered him. I destroyed my own father. The only person who gave a damn if I lived or died and I reached into his chest and took his heart out. Just like her. Just like  _ Daniel _ ."

 

Her words were fast and furious and Esmeralda knew that this was the first time she had ever spoken them. Her Little Nightingale had held this dark poison in her heart for years and it had been as corrosive as the fairy magic that had almost taken her life.

 

"I know. I have always known. Your father knew. We knew that his life would be the price that must be paid for your chance at happiness. Henry accepted that. He, we, loved you from the moment you were born. I, too, would have died for you."

 

Regina stumbled backwards, her face lost it color and her mouth fell open.

"You  _ knew _ ?" Horror spread across her pale face.

 

"I was your Soothsayer, My Nightingale, and I knew from that moment. The moment your father placed you in my arms I loved you and I loved him and knew that my destiny was with you."

 

"You knew what I would become? You knew that I would become The Evil Queen and you _ loved _ me? She shook her head back and forth in violent denial. "You should have smothered me in my sleep. I am a  _ monster _ ."

 

* * *

 

 

Regina Mills had seen tears, she had seen sorrow, and she had seen suffering. She had been the cause of all of these things and more. She had ordered an entire village slaughtered because they would not speak against Snow White. She had banished children to wander in the woods, she had taken countless hearts and crushed them in her hands. She was the Evil Queen. She had been a girl once, innocent and naive. She had loved, truly and deeply, like Esmeralda loved Daddy. She had loved Daniel with a full and pure heart and her mother and Snow had killed him. The loss had devastated her, redefined her life, broken her heart and darkened her soul forever.

 

She saw the same loss, the same sadness, the same love play across Esmeralda's face. Regina felt a bitter cold settle over her heart. It crept into her bones and replaced marrow with ice. The darkness, mostly dormant for twenty-eight years, surged forward and throbbed in her temples. She had killed Esmeralda's True Love. She had ripped his heart out and held it in her hands. She had thrown it into a fire to give rise to The Dark Curse. She had killed her beloved father for a fool's notion of love and happiness. Whether it had been for happiness or power, her father and Daniel had both died the same way. Their hearts had been ripped out by cruel, evil women. She was no better than Cora. She had become the thing that she had hated more than anything. When she had been a child she had wanted to grow up to be like her Nan. Only things had twisted around and she had ended up becoming a carbon copy of Cora.

 

When Esmeralda bent down and kissed her father's tomb and spoke the Old words she felt something deep inside of her break. The cast-iron chest in her soul where she had shoved her sadness, grief and overwhelming guilt rusted, crumbled and the feelings that she had denied for over three decades rushed through her. She was suddenly lost in a riptide of darkness and she was simply too tired, too numb and too weighted down by her own evil to even attempt to swim.

 

"I'm sorry." Spirits, she was so very sorry. "I did this, Nan." The other woman would never answer to that name again. She was about to lose the last person in the world who cared if she lived or died. "I took him from you." The same way Snow and Cora had taken Daniel from her.

Esmeralda straightened up and Regina prepared herself. She knew that the woman's green eyes would be sharp and angry and her words would be cruel and angry. She deserved no better.

 

"Shh." The other woman reached out for her, offering comfort. "It's okay."

 

Regina shoved the other woman away, she didn't understand. She could not comprehend. Why wasn't Nan mad at her? She had done terrible, horrible, unforgivable things.

 

"Don't touch me!" Because she was darkness and she hurt everyone she cared about. She was like a cancer, she corrupted everything she touched. She held her arms out to keep the other woman away.

 

"How can you touch me?" How could she want to comfort her True Love's killer?

 

"How can you bare the sight of me?" She'd had to shove her mother through a mirror after she'd killed Daniel. What did Esmeralda want to do to her?

 

"I killed him, Esmeralda. I killed Daddy. I took his heart and killed him." She could still feel his heart in her grasp. She could feel his warm embrace turn into cold, dead weight in her arms. She still had nightmares about killing him. She woke up in the dead of the night screaming for her father to forgive her, but forgiveness would never ever come.

 

"You  _ loved _ him" Her voice broke on that and remembered screaming something very similar at her mother as the dust of Daniel's heart floated out of her clenched her fist. "and I murdered him." Damn her soul forever, she had done it. If none of other crimes and deeds had happened she would still be forever damned for that.

 

"I destroyed my own father." Tears were flowing now, an endless sea of ink-black sorrow that lived in her heart had finally over flowed.

"The only person who gave a damn if I lived or died and I reached into his chest and took his heart out. Just like her. Just like  _ Daniel _ ." She had hunted Snow for years, damning her existence, wishing her nothing but sorrow and pain but she was no better than the little princess who had betrayed her so many years before.

Esmeralda's words each hit her with the excruciating pain of a bullwhip. They scored her flesh and ripped into her soul. Pain boiled in her blood and bubbled under her skin. Her entire world started to crumble and slide into the sea of blood that she had spilled.

 

She couldn't do this anymore.

 

The thought hit her like yet another wave. She had lost Daniel, Daddy and now Henry. She was going to lose Esmeralda somehow soon, and she would be alone again. She had spent so many years alone and she just could not survive it again. She would go truly insane this time, if she wasn't there already. Insanity or death, the choices were finite and bitter and she had known.

 

Esmeralda had known that she would become this way. She had looked into her future and had seen The Evil Queen in the eyes of an infant. That statement rocked her to her very core. She had never even had a chance. Her destiny had never been to be a young stable boy's wife or a happy mother, she had always been destined to be the villain. She had been born to be The Evil Queen.

 

"You should have smothered me in my sleep."

 

Then Daniel would have lived. Then Daddy would have lived. There would have been happy endings and happy people and no Evil Queen. There would have been no damaged little girl ripping out hearts to make people stay and love her. She could hear the tell-tale beating of the hearts she had stolen beating quietly in the vault beneath their feet. So very like her mother's vault of hearts. Was her mother proud of that fact? Did Cora think it was fitting for the daughter of the Queen of Hearts to be so adept at her mother's monstrous art?

 

"I am a  _ monster _ ."

 

The truth was a bitter poison on her lips. She felt cold marble on her back and realized that she had backed herself into a corner. Her heart hammered in her chest and her head roared. She bit her lip and wished she could make it stop. Everything hurt too much, she couldn't stand the pain anymore. She just couldn't. Even Evil Queens had their limits and she had gone far past hers.

 

She wasn't sure when her eyes had slid closed, but they snapped back open when two hands fell on her shoulders. Esmeralda's green eyes bore into her dark ones and she flinched away from the stare.

 

"No."

 

One of the hands left her shoulders and grabbed her chin to hold her face still.

 

"You are the daughter of Henry. You are the mother of Little Henry. You are not a monster."

 

Regina could feel more tears overflow her eyes. "You don't know. You were gone. You didn't  _ see _ ."

 

Esmeralda shook her hard enough for her head to hit the marble behind her.

"I  _ saw _ ." Esmeralda would not break eye-contact with her. "The Book of Romani holds your story just as it does every other story of the realms. You darkened your heart. You committed atrocities. You pillaged, burnt, killed, and were a blood drenched warrior queen and sorceress that even the ogre hordes feared. Tales of The Evil Queen spread wide and far. I heard of your deeds as far away as the deserts of Agrabah and the ever frozen wastes of the Far North." The Romani woman's eyes were hot green, like a flame when it touched copper. You gave into darkness, My Nightingale, but that does not mean that you are forever damned to it."

 

She had known? Esmeralda had known what she did, but she had returned anyway? Why? She didn't understand. Was Esmeralda here for revenge?

"Perhaps I should be. I killed Daddy, and for what? This curse was supposed to be my happy ending, but it was a nightmare. A never ending purgatory until Henry, and now I've lost him too. Now this Hell is full of people who want me dead and my son hates me. This is what Daddy died for, another slow and painful torture for me to endure."

 

Esmeralda's grip on her arms was tight enough to bruise. "Do not say that." Her voice was angry now, her accent made heavier by her passion. "Your father sacrificed his life for this town. Storybrooke is Henry's legacy, his love for you, his last gift to you. Do you not think he would love it here? The forest, the sea, the simplicity. Do you not feel his heartbeat in the wind that blows through the leaves of your tree? Your used his heart to create this place and his spirit is strong here. Henry only wanted your happiness. This could be your happiness."

 

Regina blinked, shocked. She had never thought about it that way. All these years and she had never considered that Storybrooke was her father's legacy. He would have, she realized, loved the little town. He would have eaten at Granny's daily and courted a heart-attack from his addiction to greasy hamburgers. He would have spoiled his grandson and taught him to ride the same way he had taught her. He would have puttered around the stables, filling his days with small chores and laughter.

 

He could have had a life with Esmeralda here, simple and sweet.

 

More tears streamed down her face.

 

"I miss him so much. I killed him, but I miss him every day."

 

Warm, scared, arms pulled her into a hug. "I know, Little One. He loved you no matter what, and his love for you continues on even now just as your love for him does. That is why you're not a monster, Regina. Monsters can not love. Monsters do not feel guilt or remorse. Monsters do not adopt little boys and name them for their fathers. You stayed in Storybrooke for twenty-eight years and it is still here. Your most bitter enemy is still alive. A monster would have killed her in the dead of some night and been done with it. A monster would not have put herself in mortal danger to bring home two women that she doesn't even like."

 

Regina chuckled darkly, "God. Snow." She lifted a hand to wipe her tears away. "I want to kill her. I almost did so many times. What kind of person looks at a little girl and wants to strangle them to death, Nan? How can you forgive  _ me _ when I can't feel anything but contempt for  _ her _ ?"

 

Esmeralda smirked, "I did not know her as a child, but as an adult she is quite-"She quirked a dark brow, "aggravating. Between her and her husband, one can understand why you went to war with them. Self-righteous fools."

 

Regina felt herself smiling because the image of her beloved nursemaid wrinkling her nose at the mention of the Charmings was just too over-the-top.

 

"But you must try to forgive her. This grudge, this blood feud, it will only continue to darken you. Your thirst for revenge only hurts  _ you _ . It is a blight on your soul. If you truly want to return to the balanced path, you must try."

 

How? She had been trying so hard, but every time she made progress she felt like she fell all the further. If she forgave Snow that would mean that she had been truly  _ wrong _ . That she was the one to blame for everything. She would be admitting to everything, every drop of blood, every crime. She would have no reason anymore, no explanation. Just the evil blood lust that had consumed her. She did not know if she could shoulder that weight. 

 

There were so many wrongs in her past and without Snow as a scapegoat, she would have to look in the mirror and know that she was guilty of each and every one of them. Henry would never take her back.

 

"I've been trying to redeem myself for Henry."

 

Esmeralda let out a sigh and touched her chin and lifted her face again, gently this time. "You cannot do this for Little Henry or for me. You must do this for you and only  _ you _ . You must want to right your wrongs and make the change to yourself. You misused your magical gifts. You used them to harm, now you must retrain yourself to heal. Heal others and yourself."

 

She made it sound so easy.

 

"I swore off magic, for Henry."

 

Green eyes flashed, "Little Henry is your son, not your leader. He is a child and knows little about your past and your struggles. He cannot understand how hard restoring the balance of light and dark will be. You cannot let him dictate your every action. You need to redeem yourself and that is a journey of soul searching and using your Spirits-given-gifts to help your people. It is your obligation as one of the magically gifted. This is known."

 

"But-"If she used magic he would hate her again.

 

"Everything cannot be about Little Henry, Regina. You have a life too, one that you must repair before you can truly be a mother to him."

 

More tears flowed down her cheeks. "He doesn't want me to be his mother."

 

Esmeralda smiled at this, "He has your spirit, Little One. You forget how rebellious you were. Some days I think your father and I spent more time arguing with you than anything else. You have always had a temper, and by birth or not, Little Henry has inherited it. He is angry and confused, but you are his mother. He will return to you. The question is: will you be ready when he does?"

 

She had never wanted to lose him, but she understood what Esmeralda meant. She had not been a very good mother to Henry.

 

"It was so easy when he was young. I just remembered what you and Daddy did with me. I read books and he was such a good little boy. When he got a little older, though, I didn't know what to do. He's so strong-minded and angry and smart. I caught myself using the same spells on him as mother used on me. I caught him with tree limbs and held him in the air. That's when I knew. I knew I was becoming her and not you. He left me that day and has not been back since."

 

Her heart ached for her little boy. It felt like a piece of her died every morning she woke up and went to see that his room was still empty. There were no shoes on the stairs or sticky glasses left in the sink. There was no echo of his superhero movies from the den or comics left on the back of the toilet in his bathroom. There was no life in her mansion without her son.

 

Esmeralda stepped away from her and the warmth of her cloak-clad form left her. "Come, My Little One, it is time to go home. Your father's spirit is not here. He walks beside us, shrouded in the mists of the realm of the dead, watching and loving us the same way he always has. This is known."

The idea of her Daddy's spirit still being with her, watching and loving, was an oddly comforting thought. She had forgotten, or ignored, so many of Esmeralda's teachings over the years. Daddy had believed in the Old Ways, despite her grandfather and mother's displeasure and protests.

 

"Okay."

 

She squared her shoulders and wiped away her tears. Her heart still ached and her soul still burned with pain, but there was something else now, something new and different fluttering in her chest. She hadn't felt it in such a long time, that she was afraid to give it a name.

 

It felt like hope.

 

"Good. We will go and I will give you your first lesson underneath your tree. The same way I did when you were a child." Esmeralda grinned at her, earlier seriousness seemingly forgotten, "And you will tell me why the tree your father and I gave you is  _ missing a limb _ ."

 

Pain, sadness, horror, desperation, love, for a moment it fell away and Regina chuckled. "That is part of a very long story, Nan."

 

Esmeralda linked her sleeve and scar covered arm through hers, "I am Romani, Little One, we love nothing more than a good story."

  
*End Part I*


	18. Chapter XVII: She Blinded Me With Science

*Part II*

  
  


Chapter XVII

She Blinded Me With Science

 

If there was one thing Emma hated, it was asking for help. It never got you anywhere. It made you weak, easy to prey on, and it left you owing favors. Mr. Gold hadn't been the first person she'd owed a favor. Favors could come back and bite you in the ass, a kid in the system learned that lesson pretty quickly.

 

Some families hadn't been bad. Hell, some had been pretty nice to her. Others, though, hadn't been. She had stayed in some houses where a simple request for help with a science project would have earned her a boot to the ribcage. She liked to think that the good placements had outnumbered the bad, but the memories of the bad were stronger and closer to the surface of her brain.

 

It was like she told Ashley, which was kind of ironic when she thought about it, not everyone got a Fairy Godmother to bibbity-bobbity-boo them up a happy ending. Not in the real world, at least. In the real world you had to be smart, tough and fast on your feet if you wanted to make something out of yourself. 

 

She was eternally glad that Henry hadn't grown up like she had. He had been taken out of that world, the world of foster homes, social workers, and broken promises, and brought up in a picture perfect mansion. He had been raised like a little prince, silver spoon firmly in his mouth. Of course Regina had raised him like a prince, she was a queen. Or had been, it was a little fuzzy to her. 

 

What wasn't fuzzy was that Henry hadn't thought twice about asking for help. He took the fact that everyone would fall all over themselves for granted. When Snow and David had refused he had actually looked a little upset.

 

Nobody had ever, she suspected, told him "no" before.

 

Yup, her Kid had landed in the lap of luxury. Though he had inherited Regina's book smarts, he had absolutely no common sense. Only an idiot would leave a mansion in search of a jail-bird mother who had given him up. Well, there had been extenuating circumstances, like the curse and fairy tales being real, but still.

 

She pulled into the mansion's driveway and parked behind Regina's Benz. She cut the engine and Henry quickly unbuckled himself, rolled down the window and opened his door from the outside. Emma sighed at that. She had been meaning to fix that door, but hadn't quite got around to it yet. She let herself out and rolled her eyes at the groan the driver's door let out when she opened it. She bet Regina's car didn't have creaky doors. Oh no, the Benz was sleek, dark, perfection. Just like its owner. The Bug was bright but a little on the battered side. It had lots of hard miles on it, but it was a dependable, scrappy little car. If she was going to stick with the car metaphors, she had to admit that the yellow bug was pretty much dead-on Emma Swan. 

 

She watched Henry dart through the yard and yank open the 108's door without knocking. The big white mansion was still his home and he would never think to knock. She followed him at a much slower pace. She turned to look over her shoulder at the cars again. They were an odd pair, mismatched, but they looked sort of cute together in the driveway.

Henry came back out the door, backpack still on his shoulders, "She's not answering me, I don't think she's home."

 

The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Regina wouldn't leave the door unlocked if she wasn't home, and her car was in the driveway. Something was up. There were plenty of people who had it out for the ex-Evil Queen and Esmeralda wasn't exactly Miss Popularity either. In a town where people loved forming mobs a little too much it was suicide to leave the front door unlocked.

 

"Henry go inside and lock the door. I'm going to go around back and see what's going on." She eased around the side of the house and suddenly wished she had brought her gun. It didn't do diddily squat against ogres, but the citizens of Storybrooke reacted to it pretty well.

 

Emma moved around the side of the house, about a million nightmare scenarios running through her head. When she peeked around the corner and into the backyard, she was surprised, relieved and intrigued by what she saw. Regina and Esmeralda were both kneeling in the grass beneath the infamous apple tree.

 

"Now reach through the calm and find your magic."  Esmeralda's words were steady and placid, comforting even. 

 

Only Emma didn't feel comforted. Regina had sworn off magic, she had promised Henry. Furthermore magic made Regina go a little crazy and the last thing Storybrooke needed was for Regina to go around the bend and become the Evil Queen all over again.

 

"I can't do this." Regina was frustrated and her voice was clipped and heated. Emma had dealt with that tone of voice more than once. "Magic is different here. It is harder to conjure and it acts unpredictably."

 

Esmeralda scoffed and said something in what Emma was at least sixty percent sure was Spanish. She was going to start Google Translating everything the woman said so she could understand when she was being cursed at. 

 

Regina, apparently, understood what the other woman said and raised her brows. Emma remained partially hidden and completely unnoticed by the two women. She knew she should make herself known, but she wanted to see what happened next. She also wasn't used to seeing Regina being so open and free with her words. It was an entirely different side to her.

 

"Magic is the same in all realms, Little One. Magic is emotion given form." Esmeralda reached out and touched Regina's cheek. "Magic is not different here, you are." Regina started to protest, but was quickly cut off. "The emotions you used to power your magic before: fear, anger and hate have been eclipsed in your heart by something far more powerful."

 

Okay, seriously, when did a Gypsy from Imagination and Pixie Dust Central get time to watch  _ Star Wars _ ? Because she sounded like she was talking about Regina going over to the Dark Side of the Force. Emma paused for a moment, a little shocked at herself. That was actually kind of accurate. Holy shit, the 3am Waffle House conversations with Neal and the babbling parade of drunks had finally paid off.

 

"Little Henry has changed you. He brought life and love back to your heart. This is why you struggle with you magic. You reach for the darkness when you should embrace the light. Your love is far more powerful than your hate. The love of a child is truly life altering." Esmeralda tucked a strand of hair behind Regina's ear. "This is known."

 

Now that was something Emma could relate to. Henry had brought life and love to her heart after years of being alone.

 

"To heal you must embrace love. Focus on the feelings you have for your son and let them flow through you."

 

Emma watched, completely engrossed in what was playing out before her. Though she knew that magic was technically a no-no for Regina, she felt like cheering the other woman on. Maybe it would be okay if the woman stuck to the good side of the Force or magic, whatever.

 

"Now let your love, and the magic it brings, flow into your tree. Think about how Little Henry's love healed you and let that healing spread."

 

Though Emma wasn't quite close enough to tell, she imagined that Regina's eyes were closed and when she lifted her hand, it was by instinct alone that she found the trunk of the tree. At first nothing happened and Emma was a little disappointed, then Regina's fingers started to glow. It was a warm violet pulse that jumped from her fingertips to the tree trunk. The glow appeared in the pale scarred wood where a limb used to be. The limb that she had sawed off. Granny had never asked why she had borrowed that chainsaw. 

 

Small, slender saplings sprouted and started to grow. Three vine-like branches grew out, green life crackling with purple magic. Emma couldn't believe her eyes. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen and she had seen some pretty crazy things since arriving in Storybrooke. The three branches braided together, stronger together than they were apart. It grew until it was about three feet long. New, healthy mottled brown bark started to appear in small, but growing patches. It was like a snake shedding its skin, only in reverse. It covered the raw wood and crawled up and down the branch. When the branch was coated with bark it forked into two at the end and two small vibrant green leaves unfurled. Amazing.

 

Regina's hand fell away from the tree trunk and she took in a deep and shaky breath, like she had just run a triathlon. She rose, leaning against the tree like she needed the support. Regina ran her fingers along the new branch, a huge smile on her face. Emma lost her breath for a moment, she had never seen Regina smile like that. She was pretty sure that this was the first time that Regina had used magic for something good. She would also bet big money that this was the first time that magic had made Regina genuinely happy.

 

"Enjoying the show, Miss Swan?"

 

Emma jumped almost a foot in the air. Esmeralda had, somehow, walked all the way across the yard and stood beside her without Emma noticing. Some Sheriff she was. The older woman was as quiet as a cat, and just as sneaky. Someone needed to put a bell around her damn neck.

 

Regina, hands still on the branch, turned to look at her. The smile faded and Regina's face reverted to the usual Madam Mayor scowl. "Miss Swan. What are you doing here? Where's Henry, is he okay?"

 

It always came back to Henry, didn't it?

 

"He's fine." Emma sank her hands into her jacket pockets. "He's inside, actually."

 

Regina's eyes widened, "Did he see" Her hands clenched around the baby branch, " _ this _ ?"

 

Emma shook her head. "Nah. He's probably up in his room enjoying his things and having his own space. It turns out that shoving three grown adults and a boy into a tiny apartment comes with a few personal space issues."

 

Regina smiled again, it was smaller but no less beautiful. "He wanted to come home?"

Oh she knew this was going to suck, but this was totally going to make her feel like shit.

 

"Um actually we needed your help with something."

 

She watched Regina's smile fade all over again. "Oh. Of course."

 

Yep, Emma wanted to disappear into a convenient portal.

 

"Here's the thing. Henry has this assignment due tomorrow and frankly it's a little outside of my skill set."

 

Regina walked towards her, any post-magic-weakness long gone. She looked confused, "The only assignment that Henry should have due tomorrow is his Science Fair project."

 

Emma rubbed the back of her neck, "Yeah, that."

 

Regina shook her head, "How much does he have left to do?"

 

Yes, she was Queen Shit of Turd Mountain. "All of it."

 

Regina's dark brows rose, "But what about his Project Work Day?"

 

His who-to-the-what-now? Oh. She had been played. She had been played hard and fast by her own kid. "The half day off from school. I am such an  _ idiot _ ."

 

She expected mocking and maybe a lecture. Possibly fireballs. None of these things happened. Regina only heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "He didn't tell you, did he?"

 

Emma shrugged, "Not until about an hour ago."

 

Regina walked towards the door that lead to her kitchen and motioned for Emma to follow her. "Well come in, Miss Swan, we certainly have our work cut out for us."

 

Esmeralda let out a little laugh, like there was some kind of joke that only she got. Emma couldn't figure the woman out and was kind of bugging her, but she didn't have time right now. 

 

She followed Regina into her mansion, she had a science project to do with her kid and his other Mom.

 

"Henry!"

 

Regina's voice echoed through the house and Emma followed her through the kitchen and into the enormous entry way complete with spiraling stairs.

Henry head popped over the banister, shaggy hair and an all too familiar crooked grin beaming down at them, "Yeah?"

 

"Can you bring your books down here so we can get started?"

He disappeared again without a word and Emma saw a small smile ghost across Regina's face.

 

"Sorry about this. I know it's last minute and all."

 

"It's no bother."

 

No, Emma realized, it probably wasn't. Even if it was because he needed her to pull his butt out of the fire, Regina was genuinely happy to have Henry home again. She heard Henry's feet pound down the stairs again and opened her mouth to say something but stopped. Regina was watching the mirror intently and when Emma cocked her head, she realized that the other woman was watching Henry come down the stairs in the mirror. Emma watched too and her eyebrows winged up when the Kid jumped the last three stairs. He landed with a slap of sneakers and skin on marble. He was in a low crouch, one hand down and the other held out in front of him, two fingers curled into his palm.

 

"Spiderman."

 

Regina named his "superheroic" pose with a small sigh. Apparently this was something they did often, Henry leaping and Regina watching.

 

"He do that often?"

She was close enough to lay her hands on Regina's shoulders, but knew better than to try. Being in each other's personal space was something that had happened over and over between the two of them since the first night they'd met, but they rarely touched, and when they did it wasn't very gentle.

 

"Every time he thought he could get away with it since he was four years old."

 

There it was again, that soft and gentle tone in Regina's voice. Just like outside of the Diner. That voice was the one that made Emma squirm. It made her  _ want  _ to reach out and lay her hands on the other woman's shoulders.

 

Henry turned the corner and she stepped back automatically. "Got my stuff." He looked between the two of them, "You guys ready to get started?"

 

Regina moved fluidly, without missing a step, like they hadn't just had yet another almost-moment. "Of course, Dear. Go into the dining room and I'll be right there."

 

Regina doesn't have any instructions for her, which is unusual, but disappears into her office for something of other. She had kind of hoped Regina would tell her something, give her direction, or at least a snappy command about not touching or breaking anything. Unsure of what the hell to do with herself, Emma followed Henry to the dining room. Why did they have to use the big, fancy dining room anyway? Wouldn't be just as easy to whip up a poster or whatever in the kitchen?

 

Henry didn't seem to mind, he grabbed a chair and plopped his book down on the table. He opened it to whatever chapter he was supposed to be doing and Emma peeked over his shoulder and barely suppressed a shudder. Cells and organs and sciency stuff, it was not her cup of tea.

 

"So what do you have in mind?"

 

Something simple, something simple, and something she could bluff her way through without looking like a giant idiot, which she wasn't, or a high school dropout, which she was.

 

"We can do anything from the Biology unit." Henry pushed his hair out of his eyes, "That's plenty to choose from, but we don't have that much time."

 

"Which is why you should not have procrastinated."

 

Regina reappeared in the room and Emma's jaw dropped open. There was a pair of elegant black reading glasses perched on Regina's nose. Combined with her usual wardrobe of 'Fuck Off' suits and 'Fuck Me' heels the effect was devastating. Sexiest. Librarian. Ever. 

 

When she wore glasses she looked like a super-nerd, but when Regina wore them she looked like some sort of sexy senator. Life just wasn't fair. 

 

Emma stole a glance at Regina and felt her nipples harden beneath her bra. It really really wasn't fair.

 

"Do you know what procrastination means?"

 

Henry shook his head, completely unaware that his birth mother was about five seconds away from having a stroke.

 

"It means you shouldn't have lied to Miss Swan about your project work day."

 

"I didn't lie." Henry's answer was quick and just a tad belligerent.

 

"Lying by omission is still lying, Henry."

 

Henry opened his mouth to argue more, but Regina held up a slender finger, 

"We can talk about that later. Now what is your project going to be?"

 

Emma pulled her eyes away from Regina's glasses wearing face and looked back down at the science book. She could do this. She was an adult and she could do this. Regina leaned over Henry's shoulder, "I think we can do better than cells, don't you?"

 

Henry didn't answer, he just flipped forward, "I thought we could do the nervous system. We could use a bunch of copper wire and the battery from my old go-cart and some light bulbs and wrap it around one of your costume dummies and make-oh can we use Christmas lights and make them blink.

 

All Regina-in-glasses-feelings were quickly destroyed by Henry's overwhelming exuberance about his project. That old pick-up-and-run-fast feeling rushed through her. Tingles in her toes and shooting pains in her calves and her heart thudded into her ribs. Run Emma, run hard and run fast.

 

"That is a very bright idea, Dear, but we are a little pressed for time."

 

Regina's voice was as cool as the other side of the pillow.

 

"Wait wait wait, a go cart?"

 

Henry grinned, "Christmas when I was seven. Mom had Sheriff Graham cut me a track through the woods and everything. When I got too big for it I tried to get a dirt bike but Mom said no."

 

Regina chuckled and Emma blinked at the sound. "I said absolutely no way on earth, actually."

 

The tingles in her toes intensified and crawled up to her ankles. This was family stuff, with the Kid and his Mom talking about Christmases past and projects. The pains in her calves shot all the way up into her thighs. She 

didn't do  _ family  _ things.

 

She looked down at the book again and bit her lip. She couldn't run. She couldn't run. Oh God, she couldn't run this time. 

 

She turned the page away from the nervous system and the copper wire monstrosity Henry wanted to build. The next page was the circulatory system. Emma almost choked at the very life-like heart that was connected to a whole network of veins and arteries. Hearts made her think of Cora, and of course, Regina's own past.

 

She heard Regina's breath hitch.

 

"I think we can eighty-six this page too, Kid." She leaned forward and turned the page again.

 

"This." Regina pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose, "could work."

 

Emma wrinkled her own nose, "The digestive system?"

 

Henry looked between them. "Really?"

 

Emma had no idea how they were going to pull that off, she looked at Regina and wanted to echo Henry.

 

"It's simple, streamlined, and it won't require a battery. I think the three of us can handle it."

 

The three of them. Together. Like some sort of family unit who did things. She was tingling to her knees and the shooting pains had entered her hips.

Run Emma, Run.

 

"Can we still use your costume dummy?"

 

What the hell was a costume dummy and why would they need that?

 

"First things first, Henry. Write down every part we will need to represent and what the function is. I need to go talk to Esmeralda and tell her that our plans have changed."

 

Emma blinked, happy to talk about anything other than the digestive system. "Plans?"

 

Regina stood and took off the glasses as she did. They dangled from her fingers, which was even sexier than being on her face, "Yes. She asked me to show her a few things in the kitchen. For some reason-"Regina shook her head, "She thinks the stove will blow up the entire house if she looks at it the wrong way."

 

Emma followed her into the kitchen, "So what was on the menu?"

 

Please say lasagna, please say lasagna, please say lasagna.

 

"The ingredients and spices for one of my stews. Henry's favorite." Esmeralda, still wearing the big purple cloak, sat at the counter drinking another cup of tea.

 

"Nan, Henry's project." Regina's arms wrapped around her and Emma wondered exactly what was going on between the two of them. "It is important."

 

Because magic and cooking lessons weren't. Esmeralda, if that was her real name, had been in town a few days and she and Regina were getting along fine and dandy. It must be nice.

 

"Perhaps I can throw something together." Regina turned to her refrigerator, 

 

"Though I'm not sure-"

 

"You're cooking?"

 

Henry stood in the doorway, paper in his hand, "But we always have pizza when we do school projects." There was something in his voice: something young and hurt. While Emma squirmed at it, Regina looked like she had been hit with a tank. He was, Emma was suddenly reminded, just a little boy. Henry might think he was as capable and clever as an adult, but he was still just a kid. A kid who didn't do his homework on time and wanted pizza because that was what he had always had.

 

"Oh Henry." Regina sank to one knee so she was eye-to-eye with him. "I don't think Mandy and Zach will deliver here anymore."

 

"You mean Rapunzel and Flynn Rider."

 

Seriously? High Tower Pizza was run by the actual Rapunzel? Emma sank her face into her hands. She was so over the fairy tale bullshit.

 

"I believe his given name is Eugene, but yes."

 

Henry's frown was huge and Regina looked like she was about to cry. Like the whole night, and possibly every shred of what was left of their mother-son relationship was about to go up in smoke over a freaking pizza. Emma sank her hands in her pockets and wished the tingles and pains in her legs would go away.

 

"Flynn Rider is in this town of yours?"

 

Esmeralda interrupted and both mother and son turned to look at her.

" _ You _ know Flynn Rider?"

 

Henry sounded skeptical, and frankly Emma was right there with him. The mysterious Gypsy Woman certainly seemed to know plenty of people in Storybrooke for someone who had arrived out of the blue a few days ago, riding on Cora's coat-tails.

 

"Only two people have been foolish enough to try to steal from me. Neither tried it again. Flynn and I have a certain understanding. I will go fetch this-"She paused as if puzzled, " _ pizza _ for you."

 

Henry and Regina both smiled and for a minute Emma was lost in that moment. They smiled, she realized, exactly the same. She could see Neal's eyes and Snow's chin and occasionally her clumsiness, but Henry's smile was all Regina. If she had ever seen Regina smile, really smile, she would have noticed it before.

 

Emma felt out of place and awkward. "And hey, since I'm the one who crashed your dinner plans, I'll pay." She had High Tower's number programmed into her cellphone, practically on speed dial.

 

"A large triple cheese for you, Kid, and-"She looked at Regina and wondered what the other woman would eat on a pizza. Hell she had never imagined The Evil Queen eating a slice of pizza.

 

"Mom likes the Supreme with extra peppers."

 

No way. Emma had expected some fancy-ass grilled chicken and spinach atrocity. Not real pizza.

 

"Really?"

 

She met Regina's eye and the other woman only shrugged.

 

"All right. So a large cheese and a large works with extra peppers." She brought the number up and within two rings the overly-chirpy voice of the brunette named Mandy (or Rapunzel apparently) answered and took her order.

 

* * *

 

 

Pizza and school projects were her time with Henry, and Emma had barged in yet again. Only, Regina couldn't find her usual anger. She was emotionally tapped out, first from her outburst at Daddy's tomb and then from using her magic. She was simply too weary to be angry at the moment. 

 

Besides, it was hard to be angry at Emma when she was so obviously out of her element. The blonde was so nervous that she had developed a twitch in her legs. She wanted to ask why the Two Idiots hadn't jumped at the chance to help, but decided that she simply couldn't care enough about it. Henry was, for the moment, home and that was all that mattered.

 

"So this costume dummy is going to be like a body and we're going to like, hot-glue, the digestive system to it? Also I'm still not sure what a costume dummy is."

 

She led the blonde upstairs to the hobby room. Which was really just a spare bedroom that had been given over for storage and extra workspace. She had spent several years dabbling in this and that to keep herself occupied. After Henry had been born she had needed the space to create then store his Halloween and pageant costumes. He had been an adorable Christmas Elf and an even cuter bunch of grapes. Halloween had run more towards superheroes and anyone who said spandex was an easy material to work with were liars.

 

"Holy shi-crap." Miss Swan gawked at the rack of costumes. "You made all of these?"

 

She shrugged again, uncomfortable with the sudden scrutiny.

 

Henry, however, didn't mind it at all. "Yeah. We always dress up for Halloween."

 

"We?" Emma turned to look at her and Regina felt a blush rise in her cheeks.

 

"Yeah, she's been Super Girl, Black Cat and this year she was supposed to be Black Widow."

 

Emma looked from the rack of costumes, then her, then back again. "Please  _ please _ tell me there are pictures of Madam Mayor dressed up."

 

Henry pawed through the costumes, obviously looking for something. Regina went to her dressmaker's form, or as Henry liked to call it, her costume dummy, and sighed. Neither of them answered Emma's semi-serious question.

 

She was going to have to cut the front panel out completely so they could fill it with the viscera and organs needed for Henry's project.

"Hey we can use the tights from your Scarlet Witch costume as guts!"

It was not a bad idea, but he needed to build on it. "Which guts would those be, Dear?"

 

Henry thought for a moment, his brow wrinkled in concentration. It amazed her how much he looked like his birth mother in moments like this. Their mannerisms were strikingly similar, it seemed that some things were genetic.

 

"The small intestine?"

 

Regina nodded, "And what shall we use for the large?"

 

"Old vacuum hose."

 

This came from Emm-Miss Swan.

 

"Awesome idea, Mom!"

 

Another small wound scored into her scarred heart. He called the other woman Mom.

"Yes." She straightened up to her full height, a maddening two inches less than the blonde sheriff. "Well, first we must get this downstairs."

 

She stared at the form. It was ungainly and not intended to travel far. It was also quite heavy. She hadn't moved it from the room since Graham had lugged it up the stairs for her so many years before. The form she used for Henry's costumes would be much easier to move, but it simply wasn't big enough for their purposes.

 

Henry raced ahead of them, tights in hand, mumbling about a mask and teeth.

 

Regina rested her hands on the form, suddenly tired. She wasn't sure where she'd find the energy to finish this ridiculously large project.

"It's heavier than it looks, isn't it?"

 

Regina turned to find the Savior close to her, too close. This close two inches seemed like two miles, or perhaps after everything she'd struggled through today, she just felt particularly small. Emma reached around her and rested a hand on the form, almost trapping her between two bodies, one inert and the other very much alive.

 

"Yes."

 

Her heart was in her throat and she wasn't sure why. A sudden dose of adrenaline flirted through her, every time Emma was this close, the other woman usually grabbed her while they fought. She wasn't afraid, Evil Queens didn't allow themselves the luxury of fear. It was something else. 

 

Something that felt a little bit like passion and a lot like lust.

 

"I can take care of that for you." She leaned in and Regina was momentarily stunned by the intensity of Emma's now indigo blue eyes.

 

"What?" Regina tried to clear her head, but found it difficult to focus.

 

"We need to get your dummy thing downstairs to fix it up, right?"

 

She tugged the form around her, "This thing weighs a ton. It's a good thing that I was a professional mover for like four months once."

 

Regina shook her head, somehow not surprised by Emma's announcement. 

 

"Were you any good?"

 

Emma winked, "The best you've ever had."

 

Her voice had dropped a little and the words set off warning bells in her 

head. "I somehow doubt that, Miss Swan."

 

The blonde smirked, "You have no idea what I'm" She threw both bare arms up and flexed, "capable of."

 

Her arms, pale but for a few freckles and one scar on her left bicep, were well formed and lined with lean muscle. She was fit and tone, like a young knight during his first summer of tournament glory.

 

"I think" she was surprised her voice was so steady, "that I'm starting to understand that."

 

Emma grinned, "Now you're getting it. I'm gonna lug this thing downstairs and we can finish this crazy project with our kid, eat pizza and maybe drink some apple cider while I try to con Esmeralda into sharing embarrassing stories about your childhood."

 

That sounded very domestic and strangely appealing. "You go ahead, I think I have something that will do for a stomach in my closet."

 

She left the room, and left Miss Swan to move the form as best she could. Regina had to escape and compose herself. Her emotions were too close to the surface and too raw. She was overwrought, that had to be it. She let herself into her bedroom and leaned against the door that she neatly closed behind her. She was Regina Mills, Mayor and Evil Queen, she didn't let silly little Saviors see her fight with her emotions. She was not weak and she was not a foolish little girl who swooned at a few flirtatious words.

 

She stalked over to her walk-in closet. This was not about her, or Miss Swan. It was about Henry and his project. If the two of them couldn't play nice long enough to complete that than there was little hope for Storybrooke in the long run.

 

The bag she was looking for was stored in its proper place in her custom-curse-crafted shelves. A bright red Prada shoulder bag that was approximately the correct size and shape for a stomach. She would have to do some sewing, but it shouldn't be too hard. If she could craft a Cyclops visor out of a baseball cap and a few other odds and ends, she could handle a faux stomach.

 

The clatter and boom was loud and sudden and Regina dropped the purse. Those sounds were quickly followed by something far worse. Regina's stomach dropped to her knees and then instantaneously shot back into her throat. Every mother knew exactly what a body falling down a flight of stairs sounded like. The sickening cracks and thuds of fragile flesh meeting marble steps.

 

"Henry!"

 

She flew out of her room at top speed, fear pushing her heeled feet to move faster. When she reached the top of the stairs she was horrified to see Henry standing over two bodies: her dressmaker's form and the equally still blonde sheriff.

  
"Emma!"


	19. Chapter XVIII: We All Fall Down

Chapter XVIII

We All Fall Down

 

Author’s Notes:   _ Italics  _ indicate flashbacks.  This Esmeralda is based on a combination of the Disney character and the original character as penned by Victor Hugo.

 

Regina gaped incredulously down at the foot of her stairs. She was utterly horrified, her brain refusing to interpret the scene. It's not like she'd never imagined the "Savior" lying on the ground somewhere, still and bleeding, but  _ this _ —she could declare with utmost certainty—had  _ never _ been what she'd had in mind. 

 

The darkness surged forward and she doubled over, the pounding behind her eyes overwhelming, nausea and fear combining in her gut. She was out of her element here; something wasn't adding up. Why didn't it feel like victory? Why on earth, instead of glee and happiness, did she feel like a piece of her soul had—yet again—been ripped from her, without her consent? Like it had been sliced from her being, sucked dry of all meaning and potential, and whisked away on the wind like an afterthought—all within the few inscrutable moments it took Ms. Swan to fall? 

 

Why were her feet moving down the stairs so damned fast? And why oh why, her mind lamented, WHY had she let the stupid, stubborn woman wrestle the dummy downstairs by herself? Regina could have levitated or teleported it down, with next to no effort. This was her fault. Emma Swan's battered, broken body lying in an ever-growing puddle of her own blood in Regina's entry way—this was on her. Unintentional or not, Regina knew she was blame.

 

"Emma!" she screamed, falling to her knees, ignoring the pain as bone connected with marble. Her fingers fell to the woman's neck, desperate to find a pulse. She found one, and although weak, it was  _ there _ , thrumming steadily against her fingers.

 

"Oh thank the Spirits!" she exclaimed in relief, the words spilling from her lips without reticence, unhindered by pride. Her terror hadn't allowed her time to consider that she no longer acknowledged the Old Ways, or that she hadn't prayed to the Spirits in eons—not since her wedding night to Leopold. Nor had it allowed her time to speculate why she prayed now.

 

But she did. Like her life depended on it.

 

"Emma, please, open your eyes," she begged.  _ Please Spirits, don't let her die. _

 

Regina was afraid to touch the other woman, afraid to move her—what if she'd broken her back or neck? The former mayor simply didn't know enough about medicine or healing to be of much benefit in this situation. Powerless, Regina felt frustrated and angry. Even more than she hated Rumplestiltskin and Snow White combined, she detested feeling powerless. But what could she do? She was helpless, unable to do anything but stare down at Dani— _ Emma's _ body. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Where had  _ that _ thought come from?

 

"Mom, help her!"

 

Henry stood stock-still, small arms wrapped around himself, tears in his eyes. He wasn't looking at Emma, though. Regina turned her neck to follow his gaze and saw exactly what caused Emma to fall. Henry's Nikes, the ones she had bought him at the beginning of the school year, were on the stairs. One shoe remained, a silent witness, on the fourth step from the top, while the other lay overturned beside Emma's left arm.

 

Regina's first thought was that it wasn't her fault after all! Thank the Spirits, she was innocent of  _ this _ , at least. But she quickly reigned in thoughts; she absolutely did not want their son blaming himself, either.

 

She spoke hurriedly, eagerly, attempting remove any doubt from his mind who was at fault here. "I shouldn't have let her move the form alone. I—this is  _ my _ fault."

 

Regina had quickly decided that her son hated her for so much already, what was one more stone on the pile? She would not let him carry this guilt. He was a child, innocent and beautiful, and she would protect him from this, distance him.

 

"It's so heavy, and she's so damn clumsy. I should have known better." She felt like crying, could actually feel the tears prickling the back of her eyes. "This is my fault," Regina repeated. No one would believe she was innocent anyway; this accident would be her undoing. Snow would have her head for this. This—this  _ Emma _ ! This woman, her  _ enemy _ , who lay unmoving and barely breathing, her son's  _ other _ mother who was dying in her mansion, on her floor, in front of their child. There would be no Savior to step in and stop the mob this time. She looked down at Emma's motionless face. "Go get the phone, we need an ambulance." They would be too late, far too late to help her, but they had to try.

 

"But you can fix her with magic!" Henry's voice cracked on the word 'magic'.

She wished she could. By the Spirits she wished she could! But she was, as Emma's crumpled form plainly displayed, destruction incarnate. The darkness surged forward, immobilizing her.

 

"I  _ can't _ !"

 

Just like she hadn't been able to save Henry when he'd needed her. "I'm the  _ Evil  _ Queen, remember?" Her chest was painfully tight now and she had to force words out through gasps, tears now falling unchecked. She was unable to tear her gaze away from Emma's still form. "I can't save anyone!"

 

Her words were fast and harsh, and having never been on this end of her majesty's anger, he was frozen in place, staring at her, mouth still breathing requests without sound. She looked up and met her son's eyes, but had no gentleness to give him. "Go get my damn phone!"

 

Her lungs were afire, each labored breath making her body jerk like an epileptic. She hadn't had an asthma attack since she was twelve—at which time Cora had taken it upon herself to cast a few insanely painful spells and "heal" her child's affliction. Magically cured or not, though, Regina was hyperventilating now; her chest heaving for purchase. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't save Emma. She couldn't do anything.

 

There was an all-consuming buzzing in her ears, in her brain.

 

She vaguely heard Henry's voice and footsteps, but her thoughts were jumbled, incoherent. Today had been too much. She felt herself sinking down to the floor, wanting to lie beside Emma and fall into oblivion. She simply couldn't do this anymore.

 

Her darkness, the evil inside of her, would always win. People would always hurt her, be hurt  _ by _ her. Emma and Henry were just two more names to add to the excruciating long ledger of lives she'd ruined. Her lungs burned as they dragged in less and less air, her vision blurring as true panic set in.

 

Regina looked up when someone shouted her name and saw Esmeralda standing at the front door. To Regina, the aged gypsy looked absurdly normal standing there with two steamy pizza boxes in her hands.

 

Esmeralda took the scene quickly before speaking again. "Take this pizza to 

the kitchen, Little Henry."

 

Henry had Regina's cellphone and had been about to dial 911. "But I—we need—" he stammered, glancing over at his mothers, trying find words to explain.

 

Esmeralda ignored his panic, unceremoniously pushing the boxes into his hands.

 

"We all need to find our calm."

 

Esmeralda had always been the one to help Regina as a child when her breathing had been ragged and she'd been terrified she'd die. Daddy had tried to help, of course, but he'd never been able to calm her the way Esmeralda could.

 

The older woman knelt beside her and Emma's prone body.

 

Regina looked into her guardian's eyes, pleading. "She—" her words burst forth between desperate gasps for air. "—fell."

 

"Calm yourself, Little One." A warm hand started to rub circles on Regina's back. "You cannot help her if you are like this."

 

Esmeralda looked up at Henry, "Is there any cinnamon candy around?"

Regina didn't acknowledge the conversation, her eyes locked on the pale blonde woman, her fingers still trembling against the other woman's pulse-point.

 

Henry ran, presumably to find her purse, and came right back. Regina could hear his rapid footfalls, feel Esmeralda's hand on her back, and Emma's thready pulse under her fingertips.

 

She heard the crackle of plastic and Esmeralda handed her a bright red hard candy. As soon as the first hot taste hit her lips and tingled on her tongue, the panic began to subside just a little.

 

"That's it, Nightingale. Slow your breathing and find your calm."

Regina forced herself to turn to the side and look at Esmeralda. "Heal her, please Nan, make it okay."

 

* * *

 

 

Emma was the Savior. She was strong, brave and good. She was his mother and she wasn't ever supposed to get hurt. 

 

Regina was the Evil Queen. She was, or had been, his mother and she had never been scared of anything. She didn't cry, she didn't scream or curse at him, and she didn't huff, puff or lose her breath.

 

He had never seen either of his mothers like this. Emma was still on the floor and there was blood everywhere. It was coming out of her nose, her ears and a big gash in her arm that had things poking from it. One of her legs was sitting at a funny angle and her jeans leg had turned a dark red. 

 

Seeing The Savior bleeding was bad enough, but it was his other mother that was truly scaring him. Her face was pale and she could barely breathe. Her hands were shaking and she didn't seem very evil or queen-like  _ at all _ . She was scared and her fear made him even more afraid because if his  _ mom _ was afraid then there really was something very bad wrong with Emma.

 

"Heal her." His Mom's voice shook and she sounded different. Henry couldn't quite figure out why but she sounded small, like she was one of the girls he went to school with. She sounded, he realized, exactly like Grace had when she had fallen down and scraped cut her knee on the playground. He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do.

 

"Please, Nan, make it okay," came the second desperate request.

 

Henry had a cold knot in his stomach. He wanted Esmeralda—or his  _ Mom _ or  _ David _ or  _ Snow _ or  _ Mr. Gold _ or  _ someone _ to make it okay. This couldn't be how the story ended. The Savior had tripped over his shoes, making it his fault no matter what his Mom said. He just wanted everyone to be okay.

 

"Mom." He tried to hold the tears back. After all, he was almost a grown man and a prince and he shouldn't cry. But man, he wanted to. "Is Emma going to be okay?"

 

Esmeralda's hand was still rubbing circles on her back, just like his Mom had done for him when he was little and sick, and she looked up at him. Henry was shocked to see that there were tears in her eyes too.

 

Only Evil Queens didn't cry, did they?

 

"I don't know, Henry. Nan?"

 

She had never, not in his entire life, asked anyone for help. Not really. Sometimes she had told Graham or Sydney to do things, but she never  _ asked  _ anyone for anything.

 

"You can heal her, Little One."

 

"I can't."

 

A tear slid down her cheek and Henry's stomach squirmed. He had to do something. Heroes didn't stand by the side and do nothing. But what options did he have?

 

"Mom."

 

She blinked at him, but didn't say anything.

 

"I know you can do it. I believe in you."

It was like switching the TV on, a sudden switch from black to bright colors, 

and a sudden spark appeared in his Mom's dark eyes. She turned her head back to Emma.

 

"Okay," she said vacantly.

 

Henry watched, uncomfortable with the magic that Esmeralda was talking to his mo— _ Regina _ about but more uncomfortable and confused by the fact that his mo— _ Regina _ had responded to him so quickly, without fight or hesitation. He didn't understand why or what it meant, but knew that it meant  _ something _ .

 

"This is the same as with your tree, Nightingale, only bigger."

 

"She's a person, Nan. With blood and bone and—"

 

The older woman shook her head, "Do you think your tree does not have these things as well? Find your calm. Go to that peaceful place inside and focus on your love. Your love is your power."

 

Love, Henry blinked, was power? He knew that True Love was the most powerful magic, but power? She was the Evil Queen! How could she love enough to save Emma?

 

"Her head first, then her chest. All other injuries can wait. A man can live without an arm, but never without a mind."

 

Regina's hands, the same hands that had made his lunch every day and tucked him in every night, shook as she raised them over Emma's head.

 

"Focus on your love and how it healed you and let that feeling spill out of you and flow into her."

 

At first nothing happened, but then he saw it. Small, at first, but bright and shimmering, the purple light pulsed in his mom's hands. For a second he forgot he hated magic because the light was so pretty. His heart thudded in his chest against his sternum and he swallowed a big gulp in his throat. He wanted Emma to be okay.

 

"Slow and steady, let your magic guide you. Let your love flow like a river." Esmeralda wrapped her arm around his mom's shoulders, "You are doing so well. Your father would be so proud of you. Keep going. Move to her chest—let your love fill her with health and well-being. Imagine the light filling in the cracks in her ribs and soothing the bruised muscles."

 

Emma's face looked smoother, Henry realized, and her breathing was better. 

It was working. It was working!

 

"Now her arm. Remember the tree limb? Let your magic flow into her bones, rejuvenating them, new and healthy tissue curling around the broken and injured, making it whole and strong once more."

 

Henry watched as the ugly gash in Emma's arm slurped the white pokey-outey-bits back inside.

 

Those white parts were, he realized, her bones. His stomach flipped and sweat popped up all over his body. That was so  _ gross _ .

 

"Now her leg. Slowly, that's it."

 

Regi— _ his mom _ was wobbling now, like she was having a hard time sitting up straight. Her skin, usually a golden tan even when she didn't go outside, was pasty and pale, like the really cold winter days when she coughed a lot.

 

"Stop."

 

Esmeralda shook her, "Stop now. You're done."

 

He watched the Gypsy grab her hands and try to jerk them away from 

Emma. "She's okay now. Stop before you faint. Regina, listen to me!"

 

His mom was not responding her and Esmeralda was getting louder but it didn't seem to help. His Mom's usually brown eyes were wide and full of purple swirls. Purple light poured from her hands like a faucet that hadn't been turned off. Her breathing, which had calmed, was becoming quiet—way too quiet.

"Mom?" She didn't respond; he wasn't even sure that she had heard him. He stepped closer, scared but determined, and touched her shoulder. "Mom, it's okay. Emma's okay, you can stop now. Please."

 

Her eyes fluttered open and shut, like she was surprised or just waking up. The purple faded until his mom's eyes were normal brown again. Her hands fell limply to the floor between her knees. She wobbled and might have fallen, if Esmeralda hadn't been holding her.

 

"Hen—" She blinked at him like she was confused, "Henry?"

 

"Thank you, Little Henry." Esmeralda nodded at him, "now help me get your mothers to the _ — _ " She pursed her scarred lips, "the den?" It sounded like a question. "So they can rest on the couch."

 

Mothers, plural. Huh, it was weird that he had two moms, but he did. No one in Storybrooke or on TV had two moms. Was that even allowed? He had begun to think more on this when he watched his mother try to stand. She began to fall again almost immediately and without thinking, he reacted, catching her in his arms. He wobbled then, almost bringing them both to the floor, as her entire weight slammed against him; but thankfully, he managed to remain steady. "Whoa," he breathed, surprised.

 

Using magic had really drained her. He had never seen her so weak. He hadn't ever even realized she  _ could be _ weak. Ever. She was the Evil Queen and before that. . . He glanced at the pictures on the wall as he helped his mother to the den, she was his  _ mom _ . She had never needed help or struggled or cried. Had she?

 

Henry helped his mom to the couch; his eyes widening in amazement as she did the unthinkable—she flopped like a fish down onto it (her own words, and something that was never, ever allowed). Esmeralda followed them into the room; Henry stifled a laugh at seeing Emma being carried like a sack of potatoes. The Gypsy lowered Emma to the couch and for a moment the blonde sat up straight, head tilted to the side, before starting to slide. He moved to help, but Regina caught her first, guiding her head to her lap. Esmeralda positioned Emma's bent legs over the remaining length of the couch. And that was it. Both moms were on the couch.

  
  


"Idiot." His mom looked down at Emma's head in her lap, her insult barely a whisper. It almost sounded friendly, like a nickname.

 

Esmeralda leaned over and looked his mom right in the eyes, "You sit, rest, and tend to your Swan. Little Henry and I will bring you both something to eat."

 

Henry was about to say that food, except the popcorn bowl on movie night, was not allowed in the den. His mom, true to form, opened her mouth to protest but Esmeralda quickly cut her off, "No argument from you."

No one told his Mom what to do.

 

He waited for her to stand up, roll her eyes and say, 'Miss Swan can take care of herself'.  Instead, he heard, "Okay."

 

What? Henry looked between his mom and Esmeralda and back again. He didn't understand what was going on.

 

"Come, Little Henry," Esmeralda beckoned placidly, as if it was the most normal sight in the world, his moms lying together like this. She walked back towards the hallway and did not turn to face him. "Come now. You can show me how to use the me-crow-waver."

 

He followed, but paused at the door to look back at the two women, his moms, on the couch. 'Moms', it still sounded totally weird. They were just sitting there, well Emma was laying, but his Mom, Regina, had her head tilted back, resting it against the back of the couch. They weren't fighting or even arguing. They were just sitting there, like normal people—like two really tired people. Not good, not evil, just tired.

 

He followed Esmeralda down the hall to the kitchen without paying any attention to the actual trip. He knew exactly how many steps it was from the den to the kitchen without thinking twice. Thoughts swirled in his head. Magic—the  _ Evil Queen's _ magic—had saved the  _ Savior _ ! That wasn't how it was 

supposed to go, was it?

 

"Where are the pizzas?"

 

He blinked and stopped just in enough time to not run into Esmeralda. "In the dining room."

 

Instead of just telling him to go get them, though, Esmeralda raised her brow, just like his mom did. He knew better than to argue with that look.

The pizzas were still sitting on the table beside his project and his backpack. His hands paused over the pizza boxes. His backpack with the DVD still in it.

Maybe the whole 'moms' situation was confusing. Maybe he didn't know exactly what was going on. Maybe he didn't know a lot of things. He did know one thing for sure, though, and that was he was really, really good at figuring out people's fairytale identities and he had a few questions for Esmeralda.

 

* * *

 

 

She stared at what Regina had called the me-crow-waver and wondered what sort of magic could give a box the ability to produce so much heat with no fire. Though perhaps, Esmeralda thought as she glanced down at the pink scars on her wrist, it was for the best. Still all magic, or whatever powered the box, came with a price.

 

"I know who you are," Little Henry stated, assuredly.

 

Esmeralda turned away from the mysterious me-crow-waver and smiled at Little Henry. It was like she had told his mother, he was very much like Regina. He was smart, but very temperamental and had an inflated ego.

"I did not know that my identity was a mystery," she replied succinctly.

 

He put the greasy thick paper boxes down and held up a smaller, shiny box. She blinked at it and though she read the Common Language just as well as she did any other, it took her three times through to comprehend what it said:  _ The Hunchback of Notre Dame. _

 

The illustration on the front of the DVD case, brightly painted with exquisite and eerily accurate details, took her breath away.

 

"I watched it. Your story, I mean. About you and Quasimodo and Frollo and I know you're not bad. You're good." Little Henry pushed the box into her hands, "but where's Phoebus? Where's your True Love? Did my Mom take him from you?"

Memories, unbidden and unwanted, crashed into her mind's eye, accompanied by a flash of phantom pain racing across her skin. She dropped the box and it clattered across the tile floor. "I—"

 

_ They had stripped her down to a dingy shift that barely covered her, making her practically naked in front of the entire city. If she hadn't been so afraid, she would have been ashamed. Her dark hair was loose, falling into her eyes and over her face. She was a prisoner, tied to a post, waiting for her final journey to begin. _

 

_ She watched as they dragged sweet Quasimodo back towards the Cathedral, back to the bell towers that were his home and prison. He fought at first, but even the bravest boys eventually run out of courage. Quasimodo was the kindest, bravest, sweetest, most innocent person she had ever known. If only he were as beautiful on the outside as he was within, then he would have been treated as the man he was and not the monster others believed him to be. His so-called  _ protector _ , the man who called himself Justice, was the true monster. _

 

_ It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was young, and all she wanted, all she had ever wanted, was to travel the world. She wanted to dance her way across the worlds, happy and carefree. She did not practice witchcraft, she eschewed her gifts. She didn't want them. She didn't want the responsibilities that came with being a soothsayer. She didn't want to lead her people or do great deeds. She didn't want to be special. She only wanted to live, love and dance. She wanted to be free. _

 

_ Frollo marched towards her, his black robes billowing behind him, a torch clutched in his talon-like hand. His eyes, deeply set, jet black, soulless pits in his face raked over her lasciviously and she shuddered. _

 

_ "The time has come, Gypsy Whore, you stand on the brink of the abyss." His voice was cold, grating, sounding like it belonged to a graveyard and not a living man. "Yet even now—" He leaned in closer to her, his fingers reaching out to caress her cheek. She flinched away but he grabbed her face and held her still. "—it is not too late. I can save you from the flames of this world and the next." Her heart hammered in her chest; she swallowed back the bile that rushed into her throat. _

 

_ "Choose me or the fire," he demanded. _

 

_ There was no choice there. She did the only thing she could think of, it being the vilest, most insulting gesture her people knew. She spat on him. He was filth, a disgusting worm, a creature of nightmares. _

 

_ He let her go as he jerked back and away from her. His opulent ring nicked her lip and she tasted blood. _

_ He twisted around and lifted his torch high. "The Gypsy Esmeralda—" saying her name like a curse, "—has refused to recant. This evil witch has put every soul in this city—" _

 

_ Evil?  _ She _ was the evil one? This man-monster had hunted down and slaughtered her people by the dozens. He had cut down women, drowned children, tortured men until they screamed and begged for mercy.  _ She _ , on the other hand, had danced, befriended a sweet boy and fallen in love. How was that evil? She was not being persecuted for witchcraft. She was being persecuted for being a Romani woman. She was being persecuted because she was brave enough to say  _

 

_ "No". _

 

_ "So as is my duty as the protector of this city and its people, I will send this devil back from whence she came!" _

 

_ He lowered the torch to the bundles of hay and they instantly caught fire. Smoke and heat engulfed her. There was so much she had not done, so many things she had not seen. She would never be a wife or a mother. She would never give her virginity to her true love, she would never teach her children the mysteries of the world underneath the shade of a tree. She would never grow old. She would never see her clan again. This was the end of her journey in the living realm. She grit her teeth and clenched her jaw, she would not scream. She felt the pain reach out and grab her, orange and yellow tongues of agony licking her skin, turning the flesh of her arms and legs to blistered flesh—she could smell herself cooking, like a pig on a spit. _

 

_ "No!" a voice rang out, clear and true. _

 

_ She blinked, pain and smoke clouding her senses. Had she screamed? No; she had bitten the inside of her cheek until blood flowed onto her tongue, her jaw locked, to keep from uttering a sound. Then who had screamed? _

 

_ Pheobus? _

 

_ Arms pulled her free of her bindings and lifted her, a sudden jerk and she was away from the fire and flying through the air. _

 

_ Was this death? _

 

_ She felt herself being lifted. Was she being offered to the spirits? _

 

_ "Sanctuary!" _

 

_ Not Pheobus. _

 

_ "Sanctuary!" _

_ Quasimodo. _

 

_ The amazing man had saved her once again. _

 

_ "Sanctuary!" _

 

_ How could anyone think Quasimodo was anything less than a hero? She had been shocked, at first, by his appearance, but had learned quickly that there was more to a man than his face. This was known. _

 

_ Phoebus might have the golden armor and the sword but Quasimodo was, to quote the silly stories girls listened to when they were young, her knight in shining armor. _

 

_ She drifted in and out, pain making her lose her sense of time and place. The violent sound of wood splintering under metal forced her to drag herself into a sitting position. She stumbled, blistered feet in agony on old, rough, uneven and splintered floor. Her burnt and abused body protested every single step. Her arms, fingertips to shoulder blades, were blistered and burnt, charred black in some places. Her legs were no better off. Her grandmother's lessons on healing herbs and spells seemed so hazy now. Why had she never paid attention? Spirits help her, she had been such a foolish child, and an equally foolish woman. She limped towards the sound of men's voices, the world tilted and her vision blurred. Her senses were warped by pain to the point that even the Cathedral's ghoulish statues had come to life and were fighting off soldiers who dared invade the holy confines of the city's great Cathedral. She continued onward towards the balcony, using beams and low-hanging bells to lean against and remain upright. _

 

_ The view of the city, once breathtakingly beautiful, was now haunting. The city, the gorgeous jewel of civilization, was in flames. An orange haze lingered above the rooftops and reached towards the heavens, unstoppable. Smoke choked the air and in every direction she turned, she saw destruction. _

 

_ Two silhouettes stood, however, coal black against the fiery sky, at the edge of the roof. The tall and sinister shadow of her captor and the misshapen one of her rescuer. Man and monster together once more. _

 

_ "All my life you have told me the world is a dark cruel place, but now I see the only thing dark and cruel about it—" _

 

_ She limped closer, every step a new lesson in agony, to see Quasimodo throw a dagger down on  _

_ the stones. _

 

_ "—is you." _

 

_ He was angrier than she'd ever thought he could be. Her sweet bell ringer was too kind to attack his beast of a master, had thrown away the dagger. He was not going to let darkness into his heart. "Quasi—" Her throat felt swollen and blistered, and her breath reeked of smoke. Each sound was pain, but she could not stay silent anymore. "Quasimodo?" _

 

_ He turned to her and the smile that crossed his face could not have been more beautiful.  _

 

_ "Esmeralda." He walked towards her but stopped midway into his odd-shuffling gait when the cold rasp of a sword being pulled from its scabbard reached their ears. _

 

_ "She lives." _

 

_ The sword was pointed at her and she was in no condition to fend it off. _

 

_ "No!" _

 

_ The fight between the wicked Frollo and the wonderful Quasimodo was the thing that fireside tales were made of. Dashing, daring, heartfelt—but this was the real world, not a story, and the hero didn't always win. Sometimes life was cruel, the truth was dark, and the things people loved the most betrayed them. The Cathedral, the only place that he had ever truly called home, crumbled beneath Quasimodo's feet. _

 

_ She ran, the Spirits offering her their speed and strength, and she dove for him. Not quickly enough, though. She only caught one of his hands in hers. She locked both hands around his thick wrist and immediately felt the charred flesh of her shoulders start to bulge and rip; she grit her teeth against the pain. Despite her determination, though, she could already feel her grip slipping. _

 

_ "Esmeralda?" the new voice called to her. _

 

_ She twisted her head and almost dropped Quasimodo from the pain the simple movement caused her. He stood there, and even clad in a ragged tunic he was every inch the knight in shining armor. The fire's glow from down below painted him gold, much like the armor he'd been wearing the first time she'd met him. In that moment, with a simple spear in his hands, he looked exactly like the sun god he'd been named for. _

 

_ "Phoebus," she responded. Even the mention of his name brought her a bit of comfort. She tried to smile but the strain on her body was too much. "Phoebus, please, help me. He's slipping." He started towards her, ready to be her hero. _

 

_ "Stop, Captain Phoebus." Frollo's voice was firm. Phoebus stopped abruptly, his body suddenly rigid. It was a soldier's reaction that had been drummed into him since boyhood. "Think about what you're doing. These are fugitives, criminals—a condemned witch and a monster. You have a promising career ahead of you, Captain. I would hate to see you throw it away." _

 

_ His words, slick with implication, hit their mark immediately. _

 

_ "He's going to fall! I can't hold him, please!" _

 

_ "Let them fall, and you'll have a clean record, Phoebus. None of this mess will have ever happened. You can return to your duties with a commendation from the highest man of  _ justice _ in the kingdom." Frollo emphasized his own nickname with obvious intent. _

 

_ Esmeralda looked back down at Quasimodo's face. It was as grotesque as ever in the flickering firelight, but that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the resignation she saw in his eyes, the loss of the ever-present hope that had marked him such a wonderful man. _

 

_ "Hold on, try to find a handhold or a ledge!" If anyone could save themselves from this fall it would be the strong, sure-footed bell ringer. _

 

_ "I will speak to the King myself, and recommend you for a true noble knighthood. Land, a title, a legacy. Everything you have ever wanted. Everything you've worked towards. Everything that a lowly gypsy will never be able to give you." _

 

_ Quasimodo's wrist was quickly slipping through her blistered, aching fingers. Tears sprang to her eyes and she frantically tried to tap into the magic that she knew existed within her. Fear, pain, and anger swirled through her head and heart, though, and she could not find the calm place she knew she needed in order to channel it. _

 

_ "He's going to die!" She screamed at them, at the Spirits, at everyone below. Somebody, anybody,  _ had _ to help her. His hand slipped through her grip and she grasped him only by his thick and roughly calloused fingers. _

 

_ "I love you, Esmeralda." Quasimodo's spoke these words with the sweetness of a summer breeze. _

 

_ He looked up at her with the clearest, saddest and most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. Then he fell. A sweet boy who had only wanted to go to a festival fell from the Cathedral and to the unforgiving cobblestones and fire bellow. _

 

_ She couldn't even scream. _

 

_ Esmeralda lay still for a moment, hands and head dangling over the edge. _

 

_ She felt his presence, malevolent and disgusting, hovering over her only a moment before he spoke, "And He shall smite the wicked. . ." _

 

_ She saw RED—every ounce of outrage and anger shot through her body, obliterating everything else. Magic, as old as time, flowed through her and she twisted, rolled onto her ruined back and threw up her hands. Magic, real magic, flowed from her fingertips and froze Frollo in place. His sword clattered to the floor, his limp and powerless hands unable to hold it, his face twisted into an almost demonic grimace. She stood, and with the rage as a buffer, did not feel any pain in doing so. _

 

_ "You wanted a witch, Frollo? You wanted  _ magic _? You wanted to smite the  _ wicked _?" She twitched a wrist and he rose into the air. His eyes, the only part of him that could move, frantically darted back and forth. _

 

_ "You are the wicked one. You have destroyed this city. You have hunted and slaughtered my people for no reason." She narrowed her eyes, feeling the magic pouring off of her, crackling and arcing dangerously. She didn't care. "Worst of all, though—" She twisted her wrist again and he shook in the air, "—you destroyed Quasimodo. Beat him, neglected him, isolated him. You let that sweet and innocent soul die because  _ you _ are the monster." The decision was made before she had even realized it, "And tonight I smite  _ you _." She threw her arm out to the side of the building and the judge, no longer safe within the ornate and pompous black robes of his corrupt office that covered him, fell over the edge of the House of God. _

 

_ "Bastard," she angrily whispered at his falling body, her eyes and body on fire. _

 

_ She turned then, magic still keeping the agony at bay, to look at Phoebus. The once golden knight had Frollo's sword in his hands. _

 

_ "Monster!" he growled, trembling arms betraying his fear. _

 

_ He spat at her, "You are a witch. You murdered him." _

 

_ "Monster?" Her muscles tensed under ruined flesh. "You thought I was beautiful once." _

_ He smirked, an expression she had found endearing once, and bit out at her, "Baby, you got real ugly real fast." _

 

_ Her heart twisted in her chest, and she raised her hands, ready to show him exactly how ugly she had become. But he ran towards her, sword ready to fly. She pulled back, but not quickly enough, and the tip of the blade cut through her face. The pain was sharp and bitter with betrayal. She put her hand up and it came back slick with blood. He had cleaved through her face, her lips and cheek, the same way a butcher chopped meat. _

 

_ Any feeling of love that remained in her heart for him withered and died. _

 

_ "I—" Phoebus faltered, the perfect chivalrous knight shocked by his own actions. "Oh God, Esmeralda I'm sor—" _

 

_ The door that lead to the Cathedral burst open and soldiers poured onto the roof with them. _

_ She moved her hand from her bleeding face and pointed it at the shocked Phoebus. "He killed Frollo." The soldiers, simple men with just as much fear in them as bravery, looked at their onetime-leader and the sword in his hand. _

 

_ "Guys, it's me!" he shouted, to no avail. They were on him instantly, like rabid dogs on a fresh steak. _

 

_ Fatigue, pain and sadness started to hit her, along with wave upon wave of other emotions, but she fought it. She had one last bit of magic to work before giving into it. She thought of home, of her clan, of the creaking wagons and the crackling campfires. The smoke that marked her translocation spell was completely lost in the haze of the burning city, but she thought she might have heard, or maybe imagined, that Phoebus had screamed her name one last time as she disappeared. _

 

_ She re-appeared far outside of the city, in a clearing nestled in a deep forest. The spicy scent of cooking meat, the soft melody of guitars and laughter of children marked the camp as Romani just as much as the brightly painted wagons and tents. She appeared in the middle of the camp, her anger-fueled translocation spell, obviously much more powerful than the camp's magical wards, and stumbled to her knees. She breathed one last word before succumbing to the darkness,  _

 

_ "Sanctuary." _

 

_ She fell forward and thought she felt hands catch her, she had no idea who, only that they were her people and she was safe. _

 

_ Sometime later, sound was the first thing she noticed. It was distant at first but quickly moved closer and became clearer, understandable. _

 

_ "Why can't we heal her?" _

 

_ "I tried, Grandmother, but nothing works." _

 

_ Esmeralda realized vaguely that her sisters, one older and one younger, were fussing over her like mother hens. They were very much like their dear mother in this way, always caring for each other, doting on one another. _

 

_ "She's waking up," someone stated, though she wasn't sure which one. _

_ Esmeralda opened her eyes and winced at the low lamp light that surrounded her. The glow reminded her of the burning city's haze. _

 

_ "Hello, my wayward child." _

 

_ Her grandmother, Patia, greeted her and Esmeralda licked her lips to wet them. She tasted blood and bitter herbs that told her that someone had bandaged and treated the cut on her face. _

 

_ "Hello, Grandmother." _

 

_ The woman, the serene soothsayer, with white hair and sharp green eyes that saw through all lies, had raised her along with her sisters. And after everything that had happened, Esmeralda was so happy to see her that tears sprang to her eyes. _

 

_ "Can you tell me why our healing magic isn't working on you, Little One?" the old woman asked. _

_ Tears filled Esmeralda's eyes, overflowing. "The world is a dark and cruel place, Grandmother. It destroys innocence and extinguishes any chance of love." _

 

_ Soft, weathered and wrinkled hands brushed her tears away, "Yes, but what did Esmeralda, daughter of Galina, do to darken her heart?" _

 

_ The story, of the fire, the fight on the rooftop, her fury and the magic she'd made spilled out of her in a rush. When she finished, her grandmother only sighed. "You've lost your innocence, Little One. Your deeds have darkened your heart and sullied your soul. That is why we cannot heal you. All magic comes with a price, and this is yours." _

 

_ Esmeralda blinked, unable to understand. Her grandmother continued, "These wounds will not be healed by magic. You took two lives tonight and this will be your penance. You will spend many long and pain-filled weeks healing, whereupon you shall carry these scars with you for your entire lifetime—a reminder of your crimes." _

 

_ She could see tears in Patia's eyes in the lamp light. "Tell me, Little One, was it worth it?" she asked softly, smoothing her granddaughter's hair softly with her withered old fingers. _

_ Despite the pain, the shame and the knowledge that she would bear the scars forever, all Esmeralda had to do was close her eyes and see Quasimodo's face to know her answer. _

 

_ "Yes." she responded, her answer true. _

 

"Um _ — _ " Little Henry's voice and concern cut through the remembrance, bringing Esmeralda abruptly back to the present. She blinked and the memories dissolved. She was back in the very foreign and odd kitchen that Regina's curse had created. Back in her Little Nightingale's home in Storybrooke with Regina's son and something called pizza.

 

"Are you okay?" Little Henry asked, probably wondering why the strange old woman that his mother called Nan had ignored him.

 

She unconsciously wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing it was her Henry's embrace.

 

"I did not know that this story,  _ my _ story, had come to this realm," she told him simply.

 

Little Henry bent down to pick up the strange shiny box again. "Yeah and you just dropped the DVD of it on the floor. I hope it didn't break. It's not even mine." He opened the clasp on the side of the box to reveal a small, shiny plate inside, replete with a hole in the middle.

 

"So what about Phoebus? And Quasi? Where are they? Why aren't you with them?"

 

He regarded her with hazel eyes that were strangely familiar to her. "They are gone, Little Henry."

 

She sighed, it was such a complicated story, and if the small painting on the box indicated anything, the story that Henry seemed to know was wildly different from the truth. (Where had the goat come from?) "I do not know what is in this story-box, but Phoebus was not my true love and not all stories come with happily-ever-afters."

 

He blinked at her and tilted his head, the same way his mother had when she had been puzzled as a child. "Are you saying the bad guy won?"

 

What a simple question, a child's question. "I am saying that things are not always as simple as they seem. Sometimes the knight in shining armor is not courageous. Sometimes love is a lie. Sometimes the hero falls. My people believe that every person tells their own story."

 

"So—" The boy frowned at her, "you don't have a True Love?"

She couldn't help it, she chuckled at the question. The child certainly had a one-track mind.

 

"I do have a True Love, but even that is not simple. Love is never simple and not always happy. These things don't always happen when you want or need them to. Sometimes your True Love is with someone else or in an entirely different realm. Sometimes they are so unexpected that you can't imagine that it could ever work out. Sometimes they are a prince while you are a pauper."

 

"A prince?" Henry smiled at her, a crooked half-smile that seemed incredibly familiar. "Your true love is a prince?"

 

She smiled because even the smallest mention of Henry brought her happiness. "He was more than a prince. He was a kind, caring, gentle man, but married with a child."

 

Little Henry blinked, "But you fell in love anyway."

 

She needed to do something with her hands so she opened the greasy paper box, only to find an odd combination of meats, somewhat identifiable vegetables, and cheese.

 

"Yes."

 

He scowled, "But then he got a divorce and was with you, right? The same thing happened to my Gramps because of the curse. Now he's with his True Love again."

 

She put two triangle chunks of the pizza on one of Regina's white china plates and handed it to Henry. She did not know how to use the magic box. The child, however, popped the front open before proceeding to make it beep with his finger, seemingly without emotion. She watched, baffled and fascinated in turn.

 

"What is a dee-vorce, Little Henry?"

 

This word, like the hot-box me-crow-waver, was a mystery to her.

He shrugged, "It's when grown-ups stop being married. It happens all the time on TV. They go to court and yell a lot and then after three commercial breaks the judge tells them who owes who money and they're divorced."

The box beeped three times and Henry opened it again. The pizza was now steaming hot. Magic? More of the electric power she had been told about? This world and it's dee-vorce and me-crow-wavers was beyond her.

 

"I do not know about ending marriage. A marriage is a powerful bond, a partnership that is meant to last through the realm of the living and into realm of the dead. This is known."

 

She put two more chunks on another plate and Henry started up the me-crow-waver again.

 

"Love is complicated. Sometimes it is a struggle and other times a surprise. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. Sometimes it is the last person in the world you expect. Love can happen between two people who are supposed to hate each other. Everything points to bitter animosity, but love blooms in its stead."

 

The box beeped again and Little Henry removed the second plate.

 

"Come." She was tired of talking about matters of love, life and destiny with a boy. "Your mothers will need to eat."

 

* * *

 

 

Emma's last thought before taking her  _ big swan dive  _ down the stairs had been 'Oh fucking shit, this is going to hurt.' She had been right. It had hurt like a fucker. She had been beaten, had been in car wrecks, and one time she had even sort of fallen off of a building, but  _ this staircase shit _ hurt worse than all of that. 

 

At the moment, though, she wasn't really in pain. She felt tired, weary, but otherwise fine. Her body felt like it was made of granite but there wasn't a single ache or pain. She actually felt tingly.

 

"Idiot."

 

Well she knew she couldn't be dead because angel's voices would never be so decadent. They wouldn't dare bring that level of sass into heaven.

 

"Clumsy oaf. I can't believe you fell down my stairs. You do not live up to your chosen surname at all, Miss  _ Swan _ ."

 

Yep, that was Regina, alright.

 

Emma felt decidedly warm and surprisingly comfortable to be lying on a floor. Sensation started to come back to her. She was not on the floor, then, that was good. She was on a couch, even better. Someone had her head in their lap and was running their fingers through her hair, so very good. She practically purred, feeling so loved and comfortable. Emma wanted to stay exactly where she was for the next five-hundred years or so.

 

"It must be genetic."

 

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. That's when it all dawned on her. She was cuddled up on Regina's couch, snuggled in Regina's lap.

 

"Henry fell down those same stairs when he was—"

 

Regina's hands froze in Emma's hair, breaking the soothing rhythm.

 

"Well, when he was about three he went through a very clingy stage. He was an absolute terror. The tantrums were—well in retrospect, he does have quite a bit of  _ your mother _ in him." The petting, the soft stroking of her hair, resumed. "He hated it when I went to work and he couldn't stand daycare. I only took him three days a week but he would try to get around it every day. 

 

First it was my car keys, and sometimes my cellphone. There were a few plumbing incidents, but lucky for me, I know Jack, the town plumber, quite well. Henry learned, though, that I could leave without my phone and even my keys sometimes—"

 

She chuckled and Emma wanted to open her eyes and look at her but didn't dare. She was talking about Henry, about their son, freely and openly without arguing or pitching a bitch-fit. Emma loved it. She wanted to know everything about Henry, and by extension she was mildly surprised to realize, Regina.

 

"—but never without shoes. So he would hide them. He would come into my room, usually while I was in the shower and take whatever shoes I'd laid out—"

 

Because only Regina would coordinate her outfit before her shower instead of afterwards like a normal person.

 

"—and hide them. It was so cute that I couldn't find it in my heart to scold him for it. Louis Vuitton's in the potato bin. Manolo Blahnik's in his toy box, and one time I found a pair of Jimmy Choo's in the oven. It ran us a bit behind, but he thought he was so clever. It became a special little game for us. It didn't hurt anybody, until it did."

 

The stroking picked up speed, as if the woman above her was reliving the events she was telling.

 

"He took a pair of shoes, a navy blue pair of Gucci's. I will always remember; those shoes are branded into my brain. He went to hide them in the den, but dropped one. He didn't even realize it. He hid the one shoe and then went back upstairs to find his stuffed monkey, Georgie, and play. I called him down for breakfast and he just didn't notice the shoe. He fell—" Her voice hitched, "and I thought my heart stopped. He was so tiny and I was helpless. All those years and I had never missed magic, but I would have done anything in that moment to have it back."

 

Magic, Emma realized, was the pleasant tingling she felt. Regina had healed her, like the tree. From gardening to surgery without a step in between. Some people were just too damn good at life.

 

"I called Graham, frantic. I must have scared him over the phone because he came over, sirens blaring, in less than five minutes. The paramedics were right behind him. I don't remember everything, but I do remember that they wouldn't let me ride with Henry. I was frantic; Graham had to physically pull me away from the gurney and shove me into his squad car so he could take me to the hospital. I was still barefoot, believe it or not."

Emma did not believe that at all. She had never even seen Regina without heels. She was like a Barbie Doll whose shoes were a permanent fixture on her feet.

 

"I was a terror. Dr. Whale almost cried, I think. Henry was fine. A broken arm and a mild concussion. They held him overnight just to be sure. I don't think I let go of his hand, the unbroken one, the entire time."

 

Emma had broken her arm when she was six and had waited in a cold ER exam room with an uninterested social worker for hours. No one had held her hand or raised hell for her. God, the Kid had no idea how lucky he was to have Regina.

 

"Then again maybe this is a product of nurture over nature. I was clumsy as a child, myself." Regina a klutz? Emma seriously doubted that. "When I was, oh ten or so, I fell down the stairs and still have the scar."

 

The sexy as hell lip scar? Not that Emma had stared at Regina's lips or anything.

 

Regina's voice grew distant. "A lady must never run. It is unseemly."

Emma's eyes almost popped open at that. Those words were cold and borderline robotic, like they were being forced out of her. Cora, Emma realized, had taught Regina that. Anytime she thought of Regina alone with Cora, Emma got a little nauseous. That night at Granny's, Regina had been terrified at the mere mention of her mother. What the hell had that woman done to her?

 

Emma opened her eyes, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the light didn't hurt her head or eyes. Regina was above her, lost her thoughts, memories, whatever. Emma took the opportunity to stare at her. It was an odd angle, but Regina was gorgeous from any view. This particular vantage point, however, seemed to soften The Evil Queen. She looked just as tired as Emma felt, maybe more so. She was pale, her usually olive skin dull and drawn. Her eyes were wide, dark and glassy and instead of the usual unflinching gaze, her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. She looked like she could burst into tears at any moment. And for reasons she couldn't quite explain, Emma couldn't stand the idea of Regina crying.

"Hey," she managed roughly, her voice jagged in her throat. Regina's hands 

immediately went still, fingers still buried in Emma's blonde hair.

 

"Hey."

 

Regina was looking down at her now, and Emma knew it should be uncomfortable and weird, but it wasn't. Like, at all.

 

"How are you feeling?"

 

How was she feeling? Warm, comfortable, and surprisingly safe. "Pretty good. Tired, a little tingly. How are you feeling?"

 

She saw the lie coming from a mile away, "Fine." As much as Emma would love to stay there, head on Regina's lap being petted like a kitten, this conversation wasn't headed anywhere.

 

Emma rolled her eyes, "Help me sit up, Mayor Mayor pants-on-fire."

Regina huffed, but slid her fingers out of Emma's hair and slowly helped her 

sit up.

 

"Any pain?" Regina asked.

 

Emma twisted around and finally settled, settling next to Regina on the couch, head resting against the cushions. "No. I picked the right voodoo-lady to fall on my face in front of. You fixed me right up."

 

She turned her head and from this angle she could see the pronounced shadows that surrounded Regina's eyes. "And I'm betting you paid a  _ price _ for all that pretty magic, too, didn't you?"

 

Regina looked away from her, breaking eye contact. "All magic comes with a price, Miss Swan."

 

Emma reacted automatically, immediately reaching out and grabbing Regina's hand, "It's  _ Emma _ . You probably just saved my life, so it's Emma." She was pretty sure she had heard Regina scream it just after her fall, but maybe she had been dreaming.

 

"Emma then," Regina practically whispered. What was happening between them? What was this?

 

Emma brushed her fingers across the back of Regina's hand, "If you get this tired from healing a bump on the head," Emma began, having thought about this for a few days, "what happened to you after you sucked up that crazy death thing at the well?"

 

Emma could sense the lie coming, maybe it was her super power, or maybe she just knew the other woman better than she realized. She headed it off. "The truth, Regina."

 

Regina paused for a moment before sighing, "Had Esmeralda not arrived when she did—" Regina looked away again, "well it was a death curse."

Emma felt a cold shiver crawl up her spine. "Jesus Christ, Regina, why the hell would you do that?"

 

Why had she risked her life for people she didn't even like?

 

The response was the go-to, constant. "Henry."

 

So short and to the point. She had basically attempted suicide because Henry had told her to. That idea was disturbing and terrifying and Emma wasn't sure how to handle it. Luckily for her, and probably both of them, Henry and Esmeralda chose that moment to make their entrance. Henry carried two plates of pizza and Esmeralda was pushing the Dress Dummy from Hell.

 

"Are you two okay?" Henry asked, uncertain.

 

Regina moved her hand, slowly and subtly, out from beneath hers. "Yes, Dear, we're just a little tired, but I'm sure we can finish your project tonight."

 

Finish his wh—? Was Regina kidding?

 

"But Mom, you're both hurt!"

 

Emma, in simultaneous disbelief, echoed his sentiment, "But Regina, I almost died!"

 

Emma reasoned briefly that if their voices, hers and Henry's, had resounded off the walls with almost identical cadence and whine, it was pure coincidence, right?

  
Regina's mouth twitched at the spectacle, like she wanted to smile.  "Henry, this is one of the biggest grades of the year for you." His shoulders slumped but he nodded. She turned then to the woman next to her. "And Miss Swa— _ Emma _ —welcome to motherhood."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta-read by Exact-Change.


	20. Chapter XIX:  Nightmares and Revelations

Chapter XIX

Nightmares and Revelations

 

It hadn't been so bad. In fact, minus her face-first trip down the stairs, it had been a damn good evening. Henry had pieced together his project with a dogged sort of determination. It was the sort of focus that she'd only seen him give to his secret operations. Well, Emma decided, Operation Science Fair was definitely a success so far. 

 

Henry’s digestive system and the tri-fold poster board blew her paper mache volcanoes and foam ball solar systems out of the water. Of course, he had something she'd never really had: help. Not just normal help, either. Regina was like Charlie's Angels level of help. She was some sort of dark magic wielding Martha Stewart craft expert. She was such a  _ mom _ . She was so caught up in helping that she hadn't even flinched as she destroyed a Prada purse for the Kid's project. A purse that Emma was pretty sure had cost more than her car was worth. Regina had just tore it apart then started to sew it back together, like it was an everyday occurrence. She was still wearing her glasses and was folded up on the couch, with her feet tucked underneath her while she flipped through Henry's science book and neatly wrote out labels to attach to the dummy's fake organs. Even the labels were fancy, perfectly uniform construction paper whose edges were crimped, wavy and zig-zag thanks to Regina's huge and slightly intimidating collection of craft scissors. 

 

Not that Emma had been trusted with the fancy scissors. She was stuck gluing the labels onto sturdy white cardboard backers and then putting the label onto a thick wire, floral wire or so Regina had said) so Henry could jab it onto the right part of the dummy.

 

The Kid was currently shoving bean-bag-chair-pellets into red tights (Emma wouldn't believe Regina had actually worn them without proof) The remains of the soccerball print bean bag lay on the floor at Esmeralda's bare feet. 

 

She, despite declaring that she had no idea what they were doing, was pushing the "large intestine" into the dummy's insides. The vacuum hose had been painted a noxious shade of pepto-bismol pink that had been neatly stored in Regina's garage in a large tote that had actually been labeled paint. Why Regina had ever needed such as ugly color was a mystery to Emma, but it had come in handy.

 

It was all coming together and the best part was that Henry was doing all of the heavy lifting, figuratively and literally speaking as both she and Regina had been grounded to the couch. Which was fine with Emma because it was only nine-thirty and she was exhausted, full of pizza, and sort of fuzzy. She had no idea how she was going to get herself, The Kid and the huge and heavy project dummy into her car and all the way back to the Loft. Honestly she wasn't really sure how she was going to get off of the couch. 

 

She watched Henry finish the dummy, by shoving in then labeling the fake guts they'd helped make. He adjusted the labels and the guts until he decided everything was perfect, Kid had definitely got his perfectionist tendencies from Regina, and then sat down on the floor with his back against the couch. He tilted his head back and grinned. He was a great Kid and despite the fact that they'd only had a few hours, they had all helped him make an awesome project.

 

"I'm tired." Henry looked up and back at them, his neck bent at an angle that people over sixteen couldn't manage to pull off without seriously injuring themselves. "can I stay here tonight, Mom?"

 

Before either she or Regina could answer Esmeralda answered for them. "Both you and Miss Swan shall be staying here tonight. It is far too late to travel, especially after an injury and healing."

 

Oh thank God, problem solved,Esmeralda was the one person in the universe that Regina did not argue with. Still, though, she knew better then to assume anything with Regina. "Regina, I-you don't have to-"

 

"Mom" Henry yawned mid-word, "Are my Avengers pajamas clean?"

 

"Yes, in your pajama drawer, darling." The word darling was split by a yawn that Regina fought to control. It was the cutest thing Emma had ever seen. Which was surprising because "cute" was not a word that Emma associated with Regina. That was what she was at the moment, though. Between her obvious exhaustion, the glasses and the glitter and that had somehow gotten in her hair, fingers and smudged on her cheek and the way she was curled up on the couch, it was all just cute. Fucking cute.

 

"Regina-" Emma grinned a little, "You really don't have to-"

 

Regina waved her away, "It's no bother. There is plenty of room and you're still recovering. Esmeralda is right, you shouldn't drive after what happened. Besides, after Henry falls asleep it is next to impossible to get him back up."

 

Emma blinked and looked around, sure enough Henry had already left the room and had, presumably, gone upstairs. Even Esmeralda had slipped out of the room, leaving just the two of them and the science project.

 

"Come on, I have a guest room you can use."

 

They both, slowly, go to their feet and Emma realized exactly how tired she was. She felt like she'd been on a three-day stakeout with no coffee. The trip back up the stairs was long and nerve wracking but otherwise uneventful. Regina's first stop was, unsurprisingly, Henry's room. 

 

Emma followed her. Henry was splayed across his still-made bed in only his pajama bottoms. The matching shirt with Iron Man,Captain America, Thor and Hulk's faces on it was still hanging out of the drawer, like he had given up the fight half-way through dressing. Regina bent over and pulled his mismatched socks off his feet and tossed them negligently into the laundry basket. She moved quietly on her bare feet and started to gently wrestle Henry onto the bed correctly. She pulled back the covers and slid him underneath. Emma moved to help without a second thought. It was no small effort, because Henry wasn't small anymore. When they finally got him settled Regina ruffled his hair gently.

 

"Sweet Dreams, My Little One." She pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"Emma" she murmured, "his lamp."

 

Emma blinked out of her stupor, "Henry doesn't sleep with a night light at the loft."

 

Regina moved again, scooping up Henry's discarded clothes and dropping them in the hamper. "It's for when he gets up to use the bathroom. He does every night , 2 am, like clockwork. Without the light he might trip."

 

Emma nodded and remembered many a night that he'd woke up up by knocking things over trying to get back to bed after his 2am pee. Something that both he and Charming did every night. Genetics were weird. She flipped the light on and the soft warm glow lit the room and decorated it with spinning unicorns, dragons and swans. She took in the scene, Henry in a cozy room decorated with clocks, fairytales ,comics and toys. He didn't have this at the loft. He didn't even have his own room at the loft. He was shoved in with his grandparents and her, struggling for space, something she knew all too well. This is the sort of room a kid deserved. This was the room she was pretty sure she would have never been able to give him. 

 

She looked over at Regina. She, too, was looking down at Henry and she made a small sound, something that Emma could only describe as content.

Regina blinked and then started moving again. She reached for and lifted the laundry hamper and Emma could all but hear her thinking about doing a load of laundry. Apparently her mom-mode didn't have an off-switch.

 

Emma put her hand on the hamper to stop her, "Not tonight, Regina."

Regina quickly replied, almost thoughtlessly, "I need to-"

 

Emma tugged the basket out of her hands and put it back on the floor, "You need to rest."

 

Regina nodded, apparently too tired to argue, which was proof that she needed to go to bed.

 

Emma followed her over to a closed door.

 

"Nan's in the bigger guest room. I didn't realize that you'd be staying or I would have-" Emma opened the door, walked into the magazine-perfect guest room and flopped on the bed just as bonelessly as their son had before her.

 

"It's perfect. Magnificent. Fit for a queen." Emma wasn't even exaggerating. The bed was the most comfortable she'd ever laid on.

Regina leaned against the doorjamb. "No. My bed is fit for a queen. This one should be sufficient for a princess, though."

 

* * *

  
  


Regina stepped out of the guest room after Emma settled in, but instead of closing it, she left it ajar-the same way she did Henry's. Just in case. Regina shook her head at her own silliness and was about to retreat to her own room. It had been a very long, very draining day. The evening, with Henry, Nan and even Emma had been lovely, but it hadn't erased the earlier trauma, and then the magic and Emma and-just everything.

 

She retreated to her own quiet room and shed her clothes. She stripped her makeup off and padded over to her bed. She felt exhausted and though her house was full, she felt alone.

 

Then Esmeralda's words echoed in her mind. Storybrooke was her father's last gift to her, his legacy. That was an oddly comforting thought. The idea that her father, her daddy, was still watching over her-and his grandson, made her feel safe. She pulled her own covers back and crawled into bed.

Her father's spirit may be in Storybrooke, but her mother was actually in her quaint seaside town.

 

Cora would do her very best to tear her world apart. Esmeralda, Emma, Henry-they were all in danger from Cora. Cora who was too powerful. Even at her peak as the Evil Queen she had never been able to defeat her. She fell asleep with her thoughts troubled and her arms wrapped tightly around her own waist.

 

* * *

  
  


At first Emma wasn't sure what woke her up, but she jerked awake and was at first confused, then scared. A scream echoed through the house. It made the hair on Emma's neck stand up and send a jolt down her spine. It was not, she knew instinctively, Henry. It was Regina. "Mother!"

 

Terror and adrenaline turned her blood to ice. She pushed the blankets off of her and all but leapt off of the sinfully comfortable bed. She was so stupid, such an idiot. They had let their guard down and now Cora was here.

"Mother no!"

 

Cora was here and she was hurting Regina.

 

She rushed down the short hall, and cursed herself for leaving her pistol at home. Sure Cora was a batshit insane Bette Middler-Witch wanna-be but even she couldn't dodge a bullet. She had never thought to ask if Regina had a gun in the house. Had never imagined the mayor would need it for anything. Regina's bedroom door was wide open and Emma rushed though it, ready for anything. Anything but what she saw.

 

Regina thrashed against her blankets, fighting off an invisible foe. Emma sagged and breathed a sigh of relief. It was just a nightmare, a night terror.

Esmeralda, clad only in a white sleeveless sleep-shirt, was soothing Regina as best she could. She was running her fingers through Regina's hair and singing softly.

 

Emma didn't recognize the tune, but even if she did the words were in Spanish...she was sure of it. The song, a lullaby was a lullaby in any language, was soft and melodic-soothing. regina started to calm, but not wake. Esmeralda was soothing her back to a calm, peaceful sleep.

 

"That's my lullaby."

 

Henry, stood beside her now, rubbing his eyes. Emma stole a glance at Regina's bedside clock, two oh four am. Henry's words were quiet and if Esmeralda noticed them, she didn't show it.

 

"No, Kid." Emma felt guilt and something like envy swirling in her gut. "I think that's your Mom's lullaby and she was sharing it with you." That, more than anything she'd seen or heard, cemented it for Emma. Cora might be Regina's birth mother, but Esmeralda had raised her, loved her, been her mom. 

 

"Shit." She muttered it to herself as she realized what she, and by extension her entire charming family, had done. Not only had then denied that Regina was Henry's mother, but also that she wasn't Esmeralda's daughter. No wonder she'd taken it so personally.

 

"C'mon Kid, I think Esmeralda has it under control. You done pee-ing?"

 

He nodded and they went back to his room.

 

"I know who Esmeralda really is." He yawned as he crawled back into his bed. "She's from the Disney movie, kind of. Except she didn't seem to like the DVD box."

 

Emma frowned then connected the dots and almost hit herself for being so dumb. Freaking Disney. Still, though, there was more important things at hand. The Fairytale days were gone, in Storybrooke they were just people.

"I don't think Disney got much right, Kid." She sat down on the side of his bed. "But the important part is that she's your mom's mom."

 

Henry shook his head, "I thought you said Cora is her-" Henry frowned and then looked around his room then at Emma then at his room again. 

 

"Esmeralda sort of adopted her, didn't she?"

 

Emma nodded, now the Kid was getting it.

 

"Just like my mom adopted me?" He sounded a little confused. "Oh. But she's evil?" Now Henry sounded really confused.

 

Emma leaned over and tucked the covers around him, not as neatly as Regina had, "Did that look evil to you?"

 

Henry laid back. "I don't know."

 

Somehow, all things considered his answer made her feel better about the situation. Not knowing was a lot better then the black and white view he'd had before.

 

She went back across the hall to her own room but she knew that sleep wouldn't come easily.   
  
  


* * *

 

 

Regina slept fitfully, her resting mind could not ward off her demons and the night terrors that they brought. She tried to soothe her, had tried to sing the evil memories away. It had worked, for a short time.

 

Regina whimpered in her sleep and reached out, but not for her. "Daddy"

She tried to calm her, but she was not crying out in fear, but in sorrow. Esmeralda could not take this from her, no matter how much she wanted too. She had the same sorrow in her heart. She ran her fingers through dark hair and whispered calming words, but she still cried out and reached for a person that wasn't in the same realm as they were. She knew, because her faith in not only the Romani way, but her faith in Henry, that he was standing there, his spirit unable to meet his daughter's touch.

 

"How old was she when you left her?"

 

Emma Swan stood in the doorway, her eyes narrowed.

 

"She seems really happy to see you. Too happy. Like she hasn't seen you in a long long time. So how old was she?"

 

Esmeralda looked down at her nightingale and forced herself not to cry. Regina had faced many harsh truths, but Esmeralda was not without her own pain and guilt.

 

"Ten."

 

She heard the blonde woman inhale breath through her nose, as long and very perturbed sound.

 

"You left a kid, a little kid, alone with Cora? Were you out of your mind or did you just not care? How could anyone abandon a child with that monster?"

Anger jumped up in her chest like a lion. It clawed at her lungs, it pushed words to her tongue. She could feel her magic burning in her palms.

 

"And you abandoned Little Henry? Why? Because you did not want him?"

 

Miss Swan did not react well to that. She hadn't expected she would.

 

"No! I was barely a kid myself. I was in jail. I couldn't take care of him. I gave him up because that was his best chance."

 

Esmeralda brushed her knuckles across Regina's forehead, "And what makes you think that I did not do the same?"

 

Miss Swan hovered in the door. "How could Cora be her best chance?"

 

Esmeralda sighed and slid off of the bed as best she could without jostling her once again peacefully sleeping woman. "Trust me when I say that if I had not struck the deal that I did, things would be much much worse."

Emma Swan, the Swan, scowled at her, "For who?"

  
Esmeralda looked over her shoulder at Regina. "Everyone."


	21. Chapter XX: Bacon, Benches and Balls

Chapter XX

Bacon, Balls and Benches

 

Bacon. Emma woke up to the smell of frying bacon. For a moment, she thought she might be dead. It was the only explanation. Emma laid there and took it all in: the fluffy cloud bed, the peaceful quiet and, of course the mouthwatering smell of bacon. The fall had killed her and she'd gone straight to Heaven.

 

Then she heard her phone chirp. She was pretty sure that even Verizon didn't have service in the afterlife. She cracked open one eye-not heaven, Regina's posh guest bedroom. Emma sat up, found her jeans on the carpet and grabbed her iphone. Sixteen text messages from Mary Margaret. Twelve missed calls. Emma rolled her eyes, it was way too early to deal with her princess would-be mother. 

 

She pulled her pants on, hopping a little to get the skinny jeans over her hips. She checked herself in the mirror and winced. She finger combed through her tangled hair and scowled at her rumpled self. It was, she decided as good as she could get,though. She ventured out into the hallway. 

 

According to her phone it was almost seven, AKA way too early. Still, though, Henry had to get up and go to school and they had to get him and his damn project to school. Speaking of her son, she pushed open his bedroom door. He was awake, but not quite functional. He had a wild bed-head and was still shirtless. He was rummaging through his drawers for something, and oblivious to her presence.

 

"Morning, Kid."

 

Henry looked up and grinned, "Hey Mom. I think Mom's making breakfast." He said it all off-hand, jumbled together and without hesitation. Emma smiled and left him to get ready for school. She should tell him to shower, but he didn't smell funky so he was okay for the day. Besides what Regina didn't know wouldn't hurt either of them.

 

She headed down the stairs, one hand on the banister, and let her nose lead her to the kitchen. She might have passed off last night as a dream-a concussion fantasy. Here she was though, in the Mifflin Mayoral Manor for breakfast. Someone was in the kitchen and humming. Humming something that sounded suspiciously like a White Snake song. Emma leaned against the doorway and soaked in the scene. Regina moved around her kitchen in bare feet with an apron tied over actual casual clothes. Her dark hair wasn't styled. After sleeping on it, it had started to wave and Regina had pushed it behind her ears. She flipped pancakes with ease and seemed happy. It was a good look on her,the happiness-not the pancakes. Regina deserved a little moment of happiness. Emma's eyes appreciated the show and her stomach definitely appreciated the pancakes-in-the-making.

 

"Hey."

 

Regina jerked, the spatula clanged against the pan, and she turned.

"Good Morning." She pretended as if nothing had happened. Had Emma not seen her jump, she would have believed that, too.

 

Emma walked into the kitchen, hands tucked into her pockets. "It smells amazing, Regina." She smiled, "Henry is up and getting dressed already."

Regina nodded and laid four white plates on the counter.

 

"Hey!" Henry tromped in a minute later, "Can we eat-"

 

"On the patio? That is an excellent idea, Little Henry. Fresh air is good for digestion." Esmeralda breezed in after him, cutting off what Emma was sure was going to be a request for living room and TV. She kinda agreed with the woman,though, there was a table and chairs on the patio and it was a pretty morning.

 

"Regina?" Emma looked at her, she was portioning steaming food onto the plates. "That sounds wonderful."

 

"Your tree is fixed" Henry sat in one of the patio chairs. He already had a strip and a half of bacon in his mouth.

 

"Chew, swallow then speak, Kid." She told him when she saw Regina's brow furrow. She could tell that Regina had been about to say something similar. Instead of glaring at her for saying something. She almost choked on her pancake. Were she and Regina co-parenting Henry now? Holy shit. Emma realized exactly how domestic everything had been: pizza, homework and now breakfast. The usual fear, the nagging need to run that had plagued her the night before was gone this morning. Then again, maybe it was too early to think about running away.

 

"You healed your tree like you healed Emma?

 

Regina sipped her coffee, her eyes guarded. "Yes. Using my magic for healing-for good-will help me be better. Esmeralda is helping me." Henry tilted his head for a moment. "You have good magic too?"

 

Esmeralda smiled over her tea, "She does. She was born with powerful magic and a duty to wield it for the good of her protectorate."

Henry blinked, "Protectorate?"

 

"Storybrooke." Emma took a sip of her own coffee and closed her eyes in pleasure. It was damn good coffee. "Your Mom created it and took care of it , protected it, for almost thirty years. It doesn't matter what happens next. "If she's Queen, or Mayor or none of the above, she'll never stop being it's protector." She looked at Regina then back at Henry, "Just like she'll never stop being your Mom."

 

Henry stabbed at his pancakes, "But my Mom-." Regina looked away, and Emma would bet big baller money that there were tears in her eyes now. "Can I have two moms?"

 

The answer came in the form of hearty laughter from Esmeralda. "Of course you can, Little Henry. There is no limit on family and love. You are lucky to have two parents who love you so strongly. Many are not so lucky."

 

Henry frowned at that for a moment, his lips quirked. It was a mirror image of his mother's expression. The one that meant I'm thinking of forty ways to verbally destroy you. "And you" He was looking at them both, "Aren't going to fight anymore?"

 

Damn this breakfast had gotten super serious super fast.

 

"I'm not going to fight anyone, anymore, Henry. I am 'trying to be a better person."

"For me?" Henry swirled his fork through pools of syrup on his plate.

 

"For myself too."

 

Everything paused, the tension was so thick that Emma could have cut it with a sword.

 

"Okay." Henry smiled. "Does that mean you can take me to school today? My project won't fit into Emma's Bug." It was so casual, so easy. Henry was a kid and his behavior, his attitude, changed on a whim. God help them when he hit his teens. He would be a terror.

 

"She has a bug? That project will not fit on a bug." Emm tried to not laugh, but the baffled expression on Esmeralda's face was hilarious.

 

Her pocket buzzed again, but instead of Mary Margaret blowing up her phone, it was her Alarm and it very clearly read: Get the Kid to School!

 

"Oh crap, we're going to be late."

 

Henry's eyes went wide, "I'm never late!"

 

Regina waved her hand in a quick circle, "Everything is in my car, but Miss Swan is still blocking me in."

 

She frowned at the table full of empty dishes and cups.

 

"Go, Nightingale, go take him to his teachers. I will clean this all up."

That worked for Emma. She stood up, "Come on, I'll follow you down and help you get that thing into the school."

 

Regina stood too, "Okay, but I need to get dressed-"

 

Henry huffed and Emma rolled her eyes, "You look great, Regina. You rock the Soccer Mom look."

 

Henry's head swiveled and he finally noticed Regina's shirt. It was faded green, a little stretched and emblazoned with a bear cub kicking a soccer ball.

"You can't wear that to my school!" Henry turned bright red, "I'll die of embarrassment."

 

Okay so maybe the teen years were already upon them.

 

Emma looked between Regina and Henry, "Regina?"

 

She smiled, "Henry's Kindergarten Soccer team, The Cubs."

 

Emma perked up at that. "Oh my God, you were an actual soccer mom! You're so wearing it all day now. Kindergarten soccer? Was he any good?" She may or may not have been rambling.

 

Regina's lips quirked into a smile again, "He was enthusiastic."

 

Another piece of Henry's childhood handed over to her with no snark or complaint. She smiled back, "Please tell me you have pictures."

Henry let out a loud and dramatic moan and stomped back into the kitchen. Regina pushed her own the Henry's chair back under the patio table, "Better. I have video."

 

Of course she did. Emma had no problem imagining Regina recording every milestone of Henry's life. She wondered what she would have to do, what crazy heroic feats, to get Regina to let her watch the videos. She would ask later, minus the sarcasm. Okay, like half of her usual sarcasm, there was no reason to go overboard with the good behavior. She was only human.

 

They walked through the house,collecting keys and shoes as they went out to the cars. Henry was already waiting in Regina's backseat, the top half of the dummy in his lap. The posterboard and Henry's school bag,complete with books, was in the passenger seat. Regina's car was bigger than hers, and it was still stuffed. Henry was right, there was no way that everything would have fit in her Bug.

 

Emma opened her driver's door (and of course it squeaked) and leaned against it, "Follow you there?" Regina, her car door opened without any 

annoying sounds, nodded at her.

 

The bug started on the third crank with only a little rattling. She threw the Bug into reverse and backed out onto Mifflin Street. She swung far enough back to give Regina room to back out as well, then they were off. It was simple, streamlined and felt like it could become a routine. That idea was both comforting and terrifying at the same time.

 

* * *

 

 

The ride to school was familiar, his Mom had taken him the same way about a million and a half times. He had a lot on his mind, stuff he was trying to figure out: good, evil, right, wrong, moms, magic. His mom had used magic, even though she had promised not to, but she had used magic to do good things like fix the tree, heal Emma and move his project to the car.

 

Everything was so complicated these days. He thought it would be easier after the curse broke. It wasn't, if anything, it was more complicated. It wasn't fair. His Mom, Regina, was the Evil Queen but she didn't look evil. It was hard to look evil while wearing a bright green tee-shirt with a soccer playing bear on it. She hadn't looked evil last night when she was having bad dreams either, or when she had been panicing, or helping make his project. This morning she had made breakfast, just like always, and she was driving him, just like always. She was the Evil Queen, but also his Mom. She was his Mom and she still had a tee-shirt from his baby soccer team. Even Emma said she was his Mom and Esmeralda acted like having two moms was no big deal. What did it all mean?

 

They pulled up in front of school and his Mom parked in one of the many spaces by other cars with other parents bringing in projects.

 

"Okay." His Mom spoke,though he was pretty sure she was thinking aloud more than talking to him. "Project, bookbag, jacket." She looked over everything. "Lunch box. Oh no." His Tron lunchbox was not in the car. 

 

She turned to him, "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry, I forgot your lunch." To be honest, he had forgotten too, but he was way less upset about it than she was. His Mom bit her lip, something she had started doing more often lately. "And I don't have my purse." Now she was practically chewing on her lip. 

 

Then she leaned over and popped open the glove box and pulled out a folded twenty dollar bill, her emergency gas money. "Is it okay if you eat out of the cafeteria today? You can take the change and buy some comics after school."

 

It was so normal that he didn't know what to say. It looked like if he said anything, his Mom might cry. It made him uncomfortable- his stomach squirmed and his face felt hot. There was no reason to say no to comic money, but his Mom was acting like he might say no or something. Why was she so worried anyway?

 

The passenger door popped open from the outside and Emma poked her head in, "We ready to get this show on the road. Ooh money." She grabbed at the twenty and Regina jerked it out of her grasp. "It's for Henry, Miss Swan. His lunch money."

 

Emma laughed, "How expensive do you think lunch is, Regina? This is more like two dozen bearclaws at Granny's."

 

He expected his Mom to scowl and yell at Emma, but she only shook her head. "The change is for comics after he wins the Science Fair."

 

Emma pulled his bookbag and the posterboard out and then ratcheted the passenger seat up. "Well even if he doesn't win, it is a freaking awesome project. We did a really awesome job, if I don't say so myself, and I did." She cocked her head and stared at his project, it was squeezed tightly into the back seat with him.

 

"Can't you magic the dummy out of the car too?"

 

Regina went stiff, "I don't want to scare anyone here, Miss Swan. If they see purple smoke today's Science Fair may turn into a witch hunt."

Emma huffed, "Not even fair." She sounded annoyed, but smiled, "And stop calling me Miss Swan. I keep looking around to see what teacher has caught me passing notes."

 

Regina didn't answer but she did chuckle a little bit and got out of the driver's seat so he could ratchet it up to get out. It took all three of them to wiggle, jiggle and angle the dummy out of the car. Henry was starting to wish that he had just made a cell diorama or something, it would have been much easier to move. Still, though, it was a cool digestion system.

"Where we taking this thing?" Emma asked. She was looking around with a confused look on her face. Then Henry remembered that she had never been to his school, not the inside at least.

 

"The Gym. It's over-" The bell rang and cut him off. If he wasn't in class in five minutes he really would be late.

 

"Go, Kid. Your Mom and I can get it in there." She looked at Regina, "Right?"

His Mom knew the way, she'd been to school tons and tons of times. They would get it set up for him. "Okay, thanks. Bye Moms. Love you." He said it over his shoulder as he jogged away. 

 

His was not the only shouted goodbye.  Everyone's parents seemed to be lugging their various stuff in the same direction. Emma pushed the dummy, on wheels now, and Regina carried the poster board. They followed the rest of the adults towards the Gym. His Mom-Mom-Moms-fit right in with the rest of them. He hurried towards his classroom but didn't know if he could focus on school at all. There was way too much on his mind, and no one he could talk to about it.

 

* * *

 

 

The classroom was the same: bright, orderly, and cheerful. If she didn't know any better she would think that nothing had changed. It had though, everything had changed. Everything: the children, herself, everything. School, however, was still in session and it was up to her to help the children make sense of their dual memories and help them learn.

 

Her classroom started to fill up. She smiled, pleased to see that the kids were happy to have her back. None of them were so excited as Ms. Potts, though. She was more than ready to take back her usual position in the school library.

 

Her last student skid into the classroom just as the bell rang. His sneakers squeaked against the tile, "Oh hey Ms-" Henry grinned, "Grandma!"

 

"Please take your seat, Henry, and as I just told everyone else, "there is no running in the halls. In the classroom I am still Ms Blanchard." Because Miss Snow White sounded odd, even to her own ears. "I know that a lot has changed and I was gone for a bit but one thing is still the same, we are all here to learn."

Ms Potts had, more or less, followed her lesson plans. She had relied on worksheets and other busy-work. Snow had decided that after twenty-eight years that the curriculum needed shaking up. After all, these children were from the Enchanted Forest and deserved to learn about that world too.

 

"So, Guys, we're going to start something a little new-"She spent the morning teaching them about the geography and early history of the Enchanted Forest. Their home. She didn't have any text books and was teaching from memory of what her tutors had taught her. It was shocking to find how many students knew little about their home. 

 

Lunch arrived and she was ready for the break. She assured everyone that they would visit the fair after they ate and released them to the cafeteria to eat and socialize. She,too, decided it was high time to catch up with her colleagues. The Teacher's Lounge was bustling when she arrived. Many of the teachers smiled and welcomed her back warmly,though a few gave her sour looks. She had no idea why they would do that.

 

She retrieved her lunch and smiled at the little note that David had managed to slip into her lunch bag. The talk of the room was, to her great relief, not the Science Fair. The highlight of the conversation was how the Evil Queen and Savior had brought Henry's project in together. That explained where Emma and Henry had been all night, though she was still upset that Emma had flat-out ignored her calls and texts. Her daughter and her wild behavior was a completely different issue that she would deal with after school.

 

"Snow." She looked up from her sandwich to see Leah, her boss, smiling at her. The room's other conversations stopped, all attention on them. "I see that you did decide to rejoin us."

 

Snow swallowed her bite, "I really missed the kids." Leah smiled a little but the gesture did not reach her eyes. "I would have preferred you meet with me prior to taking your classroom back." Her words were cold, like ice, and announced for everyone to hear. "You've missed several staff meetings and need to be brought up to speed on the school's new policies." She had forgotten, Leah was not Lia, and Leah liked to play at politics. Now she remembered why she liked Aurora better.

 

Snow opened her mouth to respond but was cut off neatly, "And if I remember correctly, you're the head of the Family Dance Committee. No one stepped in for you." Her eyes, glacier blue, swept across the rest of the room. The other teachers didn't look up, didn't speak up, didn't make any moves. "So unless you want to cancel it." Sharp and cold, her words were like icicles . I'm going to need you to have your plans on my desk for approval by tomorrow morning." Though it sounded optional, Snow could tell that it was not. 

 

The Family Dance, a dance for all the students and their parents, was the Elementary School version of Prom. It took weeks to plan and execute. It was scheduled for next Friday night. It was an impossible task to plan it in a week, and this was obviously a punishment. For what, Snow wasn't sure. Her absence had been due to the curse breaking. Then her involuntary trip to the Enchanted Forest hadn't exactly been a pleasure cruise. Still, she knew that arguing the point was exactly the wrong thing to do at the moment.

 

"Of course."

 

It wasn't as if she hadn't planned the dance for several years and balls before that. She paused, now there was an idea. Ideas popped into her head in full color, bright and glowing like fireworks. "My plans for this year's dance are nothing short of, well, magical."

 

Everyone was looking at them. Snow realized that this was about more than a dance or even about Leah laying down the law. Snow was pretty sure that if she didn't handle this just the right way it would come back to bite her in the rump later.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow taking Henry's project had turned into a walk. The walk had stretched from the school parking lot to the park. The park had stretched all along the walking path. The path had taken them to the pond. They sat on a bench overlooking the pond.

 

"And he booted it right out into the water. It hit well, a swan."

The story was one of her favorite memories of Henry when he was young.

Emma laughed, she threw her head back and laughed out loud. "No! No he didn't."

 

Regina nodded and continued, "And the swan was a little upset. We both had to run but his legs were so little. I picked him up and kicked off my heels and I ran with him. All the way back to the street. Which was the end of private soccer practices with me. I can still hear that bird squawking and Henry screaming. Thankfully five year olds are easily calmed by ice cream."

 

"I'm not sure what's best! You playing soccer in a pencil skirt or an actual swan chasing you or that you made it better with ice cream." Emma's smile was wide and unfettered. It went all the way to her eyes, which twinkled and shined with humor. "You are a really good mom."

 

Regina felt that small frisson a something that might have been happiness in her chest. "Thank You, Emma." Emma stretched out on the bench, and looked out at the water. "It's the truth. And I'm that swan who got ruffled and is running after you, screwing everything up."

 

Regina heard it all in a few words. The guilt, the self-depreciation, the uncertainty, the underlying pain. She didn't like it. As a queen, as a mayor, as a wife and daughter, she had dealt with such emotions her entire life. Well, maybe dealt was a strong word, she had mostly avoided and ignored them. She couldn't deal with her own emotions, she had no idea how to deal with the emotions of others. She had never been close to others, not since childhood. Every time she had tried it had ended in disappointment, disaster, death. Now, though, with Emma, she couldn't step back. She didn't like that either.

 

"You're not. In this particular situation, name aside, you are not the swan. You're the ice cream."

 

There was seriousness, a tension, a moment of thickness. where the quacks of the ducks were muted and the breeze was stilted. It was just herself and Emma. Her heartbeat picked up and sweat slid down her spine. Damn her and her mouth, her tender heart that was so foolish and weak. Damn her softness, one night and she was suddenly opening herself up to the woman who-

 

"So I'm sweet and am going to give Henry cavities?"

 

The depreciation again. The supposedly good-natured-joking was real for 

Emma, it was a natural defense mechanism. Regina recognized it as such, after all she had many of her own. Regina hated it, almost as much as she hated her own weaknesses. She hated it because Regina was looking at the person who...Someone that...Emma had protected her, helped her, met her head on. She was the person who looked at her and saw more than the Evil Queen, for better or worse. 

 

Emma had, unknowingly, declared her loyalty to Regina at breakfast. She had agreed with Esmeralda about Storybrooke being her protectorate. Emma didn't realize what she had done, nor did Henry, of course. She did. In the Enchanted Forest that was as good as a signed treaty or a marriage proposal. No one had ever, not in her entire adult life, done something like that for her. It was-she didn't even have a word in her mind but her mouth spilt them without thought.

 

"No." She turned to face Emma. They were close: thighs and sides touching, arm over shoulder, touching each other. It was casual but somehow intimate. 

It was closer than she'd been to someone Someone that-

 

Regina felt a storm inside her, the tamped down emotions she'd ignored for so long. The emotions that her mother had called weakness. The emotions that the Royal Court mocked. The emotions she had set aside to become the Evil Queen. They raged inside her. She felt raw, exposed, vulnerable. She took a deep, calming breath like Archie and Esmeralda encouraged her to do all the time. She bit her lip and then voiced a single thought.

 

"No, you made things between Henry and I better again."  She loathed admitting it, but it was true. "This is known."

 

That made Emma smile. "It is?"

 

"To me. Now."

 

Emma regarded her, searched her eyes but said nothing. Some would say that Emma had her mother's eyes. They were idiots. Emma's eyes were her own. There were a painter's palette of blues and greens. They were the sky and the sea, two things that Regina had always associated with freedom. Emma's eyes were warm and caring, and locked on her own. Fear and want battled in her head. She was frozen on the spot. 

  
Emma, though, was able to move, to lean forward, to reach out. Emma pushed a strand of her now curly and wild dark hair out of her face. Her fingers were gentle, her touch kind. Emma leaned forward and paused just for a second, to wait for her to pull away, to rebuff her advance. Then Emma kissed her, and Regina's entire world spun, turned on it's head and the space around them exploded. It was magic.


	22. Chapter XXI:  Tea for Two

Chapter XXI

Tea for Two

 

 

Author’s Note:  _ Italics  _ indicates a flashback _. _

  
  


She sat at the head of the dining room table, a steaming cup of tea in front of her. Since Regina employed no servants she'd had conjured the tea and the fine china cup she drank it from by herself. She sipped it delicately and the perfect mix of bitter and tart made a corner of her mouth tug up into a half smile. One didn't stay so many years in Wonderland and not cultivate a certain appreciation for a good cup of tea.

 

Cora waited, and knew very well that the Gypsy knew she was there and waiting. It was a battle of wills, and Cora knew that she could out-wait the other woman. She had not gotten this far in life and not learned to bide her time.

 

"Cora."

 

The voice came from behind her, which was mildly surprising. The woman had been in the kitchen when she'd arrived. She'd been tidying up, which was servant's work and befitted her. Esmeralda had been the first to speak, a point in Cora's favor. She had chosen their positioning, though, so that Cora was now the one at a disadvantage. Sneaky little whore. She took a sip of tea.

 

"Gypsy."

 

She'd hated Esmeralda from the moment Henry had brought her into her manor. He had brought another woman into not only their home but into their daughter's life. He had brought a gypsy and had made it clear that he had loved her and preferred her and-

 

Fury made Cora's hands shake. She put the cup down, she would not show weakness, not to Esmeralda.

 

The woman walked around her and sat at the other end of the table. She looked older: white streaks in her hair and wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Some would call them laugh lines. Cora had made sure that 

Esmeralda had little to laugh about over the years.

 

The silence was tense, heavy, and overbearing. Magic crackled in the air. Theirs was a complicated relationship, but in the end it came down to one thing: Henry.

 

Henry had loved Esmeralda. The sort of love that the bards sang about. The kind of love that Snow White chirped about to her little birdies. True Love. Cora knew that love was weakness. She had removed and stored away her own heart years ago but before that she had loved too.

 

She knew love: how it felt and tasted, how it overwhelmed senses including common and proprietary. So she never begrudged Henry his love. Love was worthless. Fidelity, on the other hand, was something she valued. Something she had thought he would value as well.

 

He had brought his Gypsy Whore into their home. The home his late royal father had oh-so-graciously-gifted them when she'd given birth to Regina. Well, that was the official story, of course. The truth of the matter was that much of her pregnancy had been spent spinning their kingdom back into financial power.

 

She had worked, she had sacrificed, she had lain with him and given him a child. She had saved his kingdom. She had re-made herself from a miller's daughter into a Lady. She had been the one to secure their place in the nobility, however meager. Cora had done all of that, and plotted a path that would take their daughter to greatness.

 

Yet, Henry had chosen Esmeralda instead.

 

Even the lowliest peasant, the despised cast she had been born into, had more standing than gypsies. Henry hadn't cared about the standing she'd worked so hard to give them though. He'd chosen his gypsy. Then Regina had chosen her too.

 

"You are not welcome here Cora."

Yet Esmeralda was. Regina had always been an ungrateful child. She had let Henry spoil her. For ten long years, she had let Esmeralda fill her head full of foolish fantasies.

 

"You broke our deal." She glared at the woman over the rim of her tea cup. 

"I thought I made it clear many years ago, Regina is my daughter, not yours."

 

_ "Really, Regina" She tugged her willful child along the corridor. "None of this is necessary or lady-like." She let her nails dig into the soft skin of the girl's inner-elbow to hurry her along. "The King has re-routed his entire court from their journey back to the Winter Palace just for your birthday. We are all incredibly honored by his attention." _

 

_ "I don't like Uncle, though. He is rude and ill-tempered." _

 

_ Her reaction was immediate, she smacked Regina across her cheek, hard. "His Majesty is the King and you owe him gracious loyalty. His bloodline is what will allow you to rise to be a Queen." _

 

_ Regina jerked away from her, and pulled her small arm out of her grasp. "He's not coming for my birthday. He's coming for more of your magic and everyone knows it!" She backed away farther, "And I'm not going to be a Queen." _

 

_ Anger, ice cold and violent, flooded into her blood. Her back straightened and stiffened and she grit her teeth. She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails bit into her flesh. _

_ "Regina." She snapped, her voice was a weapon all it's own, like a whip. "I don not know where this insubordination comes from, but it will stop, this instant." _

 

_ The girl crossed her arms her chest and raised her chin defiantly. "I don't want this new dress and I don't want to spend my birthday with Uncle. Father promised to take me riding and-" _

 

_ She closed the gap between them and grabbed her defiant child by her shoulders. She gave her a hard shake, "That's enough, Regina! I am your mother you will obey me." _

 

_ She jerked away again, "You're not my real mom! Blood doesn't make family, love does and you don't love me! I don't love you either! Esmeralda is my mom!" _

 

_ If words were arrows, she would have surely died. If she'd had her heart, it would have surely broken. She saw red, it consumed her, white hot rage boiled in her blood. "You disloyal little snake!" She lifted her, anger and magic fueled her strength. "You have no idea what I've done, what I've sacrificed, what I have done to give you this life you hate so much." She shook the girl again and dark brown hair flew loose of it's neat plaiting. "How dare you?" She could hear Regina crying and could feel her struggling. "I will not have you destroying this life because you are an ungrateful little brat." _

 

_ She pushed her hand against her daughter's chest, past the silk of her dress and the stiff linen and bone stays of her corset and into her chest. She felt a small, rebellious heart in her fist-pumping fast and furious, full of fear. _

 

_ "You are my daughter. You will be obedient. You will be Queen." _

 

_ "No!" She only got one word, one moment, of warning then there was pain. Rough calloused hands wrapped around her wrist and nails clawed at her face. Magic, wild and powerful, clashed against her own. It was invasive, like having fiery splinters shoved under her skin. It was nauseating and wrong, like being turned inside out. It blasted a rainbow of colors and clanging bells into her mind. Esmeralda was fighting her, forcing herself between mother and daughter. _

 

_ The Gypsies green eyes were wild with anger and magic. Cora forced her magic back, and focused on her own. She had been tutored by the Dark One himself, a simple soothsayer could not defeat her. She would not allow it. _

 

_ Fingers wrapped around her wrist burnt, burnt like a branding iron, all the way down to her bones. She might have screamed, or it may have been Regina or even Esmeralda. The shrill sound cut through the bells clanging in her ears. She let go of Regina's heart and the girl dropped away. The two of them, Cora and Esmeralda, stood, nose to nose, magic crackling between them. _

_ "You witch! You heartless witch! How dare you try to remove her heart? She is a child! There is no act more monstrous than that!" _

 

_ Another hand wrapped around her other and a grunt of pain forced itself through her grit teeth. Reaching into a blacksmith's forge would be less painful. _

 

_ "She is my daughter. Not yours!" _

 

_ More pain but she fought back, forcing her own magic into Esmeralda. _

 

_ "She is an innocent child! Removing her heart will destroy her! It would twist her into an unimaginable creature without love or empathy or conscience. Even you are not so cruel." _

 

_ That brought Cora up short. She had removed her own heart as an adult. She had never heard of a heartless child. The idea was both intriguing and disturbing. Regina would be her perfect little princess, totally under her control. If they should ever be separated though. Cora let the idea settle over her. Regina would be an abomination-completely detached from humanity, from emotion.  _

 

_ The idea had it merits. _

 

_ Another wave of white hot pain scorched up her bones and she grunted against it. _

 

_ "Regina is not one of your magical experiments. She is a little girl! Your own flesh and blood!" _

 

_ Cora tilted her head, there was a chance here to make this spat end in her favor. _

_ "She says that she's your daughter, Gypsy. You stole my husband and now my child, Home Wrecking Gypsy Whore." _

 

_ Esmeralda didn't look away, Cora would give her that. The Gypsy was many things, but she didn't lack in courage. _

 

_ "I did. I will not deny this. Be angry with me. Be angry with Henry. Leave Regina out of this,she is innocent." _

 

_ Cora could see the fear flaring in the woman's green eyes. She relished it. "And what would you trade for Regina's safety, Gypsy?" _

 

_ The fear drained from her eyes and Esmeralda's squared her chin, "You want to make a deal with me?" _

 

_ Cora licked her lips. This was her chance to finally rid herself of the woman. Murder had, unfortunately, never been an option. Not if Cora wanted to live a long life. Gypsy clans avenged the murders of their own and it was never pretty. This,though, was something that might work. _

_ "You leave. Forever. You will never see or speak or write to or otherwise communicate with Regina. If she dies, you don't come to her funeral. Disappear, never to return and I swear that I will never take Regina's heart again." _

 

_ They were still grappling, locked in magical combat. Cora could feel the burn of the Gypsy's magic in her body and knew that her magic was hurting the other woman as well. _

_ "Regina or her family." _

 

_ Esmeralda counter-offered after a moment of thought. _

 

_ She was trying to protect Henry. Lucky for her, Cora didn't need Henry's weak heart to control him. Besides, it wouldn't be as devastating of a blow if he didn't have his heart. His betrayal deserved long and lingering pain. Separating him from his precious true love, well he deserved no better. After all, hadn't she sacrificed her own love for him? _

 

_ "I won't take her heart or the heart of any of her family members if you are gone by the rise of the moon." _

 

_ "Dawn. I need to heal Regina from the harm you've inflicted." _

_ Cora smirked and hoped it looked as cold and cruel as she felt, "And to say goodbye to your lover?" _

 

_ Esmeralda pursed her lips, "Yes." _

 

_ Cora sneered at that, but let it pass. Their parting would be such sweet sorrow, she was sure. _

_ "Swear to it. Your word is your life, if you break it, you die. Isn't that right?" _

 

_ Esmeralda nodded. "And if you break this deal, then you forfeit the terms. If that happens then know that I will be back for my Little Nightingale and for you, Cora." _

 

_ She could feel a different ice cold magic flood through her. The gypsy magic that bound them to this agreement. The deal was done and by the morning, the Gypsy would be gone. Her house, her husband, her heir would all be hers once more. _

"And I told you then, Cora." Esmeralda sat her simple white mug down on the table hard enough that it may have cracked. "That if you broke your word I would come back for Regina and for you."

 

Cora steepled her fingers, "I took many many hearts, but not Regina's and not Henry's. Your Little Nightingale" She sneered the pet-name as she spoke it. "Did that herself. I've never been prouder of her."

 

She took a sip of her tea, casually. "And my darling daughter never produced an heir. So it's quite impossible that I took the heart of one of her family members."

 

"Emma Swan is the mother of Little Henry, Regina's adopted son." Esmeralda countered.

 

It was like negotiating trade or a treaty or any other business. This entire conversation was absurdly civil and almost pleasant..

 

"The keyword is adopted. Family is blood." Cora wasn't sure what the Gypsy's game was, but she would play it, for the moment.

 

Esmeralda smirked and swirled her tea in the annoying plain mug. "Ah but in 

my culture family is love and adoption is a time-honored tradition. This made Emma Swan family and when you attempted to remove her heart, our deal was broken."

Cora maintained a calm facade and mulled over the words. She may have grown up a poor miller's daughter but she knew to read a contract in full before signing it. She had made, it seemed, a tactical error all those years before. She cocked a brow, "Using word choice against me, how cute." She waved her hand dismissively, "I suppose it doesn't matter now. I'm here and Regina knows that-"

 

"You will not go near, Regina. I left her once, I will not do so again."

Cora stood up and conjured a fireball. "You will not stop me from reuniting with my daughter."

 

Esmeralda stood too, "She is my daughter and you won't touch her!"

The forceful blast of magic, a strong shielding spell dissolved her fire ball and almost knocked Cora off her feet. Esmeralda had always been strong, but now she was stronger. Cora squared her shoulders and blasted back at her. Esmeralda redirected her fire with a negligent sweep of her hand. It burnt the wall and scorched the ceiling molding. Cora could feel the magic coming off of the other woman in strong waves. It was far more than she had expected or prepared for.

 

"Leave this house, Cora. Now."

 

Cora tamped down on her fury and clenched her fists. She wasn't sure she could win this fight, not without proper preparation.

 

"I will leave,for now." She glared at the other woman, "but know this, Gypsy Whore, I will be back for my daughter."

 

"Over my dead body." Esmeralda all but growled that.

 

"Preferably." Cora quipped then she disappeared in a cloud of dark blue smoke.

 

* * *

 

 

When the Witch was gone, Esmeralda sat down, hard, on the nearest char. Her heart was pounding a rhythm so hard and fast that her chest actually ached. Cold sweat covered her skin and she buzzed with magic and memories. She fixed the minor damage to the dining room with a wave of her hand. She cleaned her own cup then threw (or perhaps the better word would be smashed) Cora's tea cup into the rubbish bin.

How dare she! How dare that heartless woman come into Regina's home uninvited and threaten her!

 

Esmeralda went outside into the back garden and paced it. The sky above and the ground below usually helped her think. She was trying to find her calm, to center herself. It was not working. Seeing Cora, fighting her, it brought up the memories of the other worst night of her entire life.

_ She watched Cora walk away, numb from the fight and her vow. She watched Cora walk away without pausing to give her daughter a passing glance. Regina, an innocent caught up in their battle, lay deathly still on the flagstone floor. Esmeralda fell to her knees beside of her. She had fallen face down. She had been knocked completely out by the powerful magics. Her mother's magic, vicious and dark, had cut the girl's arms, chest, neck and face. Though she had not taken Regina's little heart,she had hurt her. She had all but mauled the girl. _

 

_ Tears overflowed her eyes. Esmeralda had been so busy dealing with Cora that she had let Regina lay there to suffer and bleed. _

 

_ "Oh Little One, I am so sorry." _

 

_ "Esmeralda!" _

 

_ Henry came, running at full speed, down the hallway. One of the other servants must have told him what had occurred. When he saw Regina's bundled in her arms he stumbled to a stop, his usually golden tan skin bleached to white. _

 

_ "Oh My Spirits, Regina!" _

 

_ He fell beside her and gingerly touched his daughter.  "Oh my baby girl. What did she do? What did Cora do?" _

 

_ They carried Regina together, both unwilling to let her go, up to her nursery. They tucked her into Esmeralda's bed instead of her own. _

 

_ She worked for hours healing their little girl. Henry held her had, whispered prayers and wiped sweat and blood away with cool rags. They spoke softly as the cared for their daughter. She told him of the deal, and of how it protected him and Regina. _

 

_ She watched the man that she loved with all her heart and soul break down in tears. _

 

_ "I have to leave a scar, Henry." _

 

_ He looked up, weary. "A scar?" _

 

_ She nodded, "I can't remove all the evidence of such dark magic, this is known. There has to be a reminder,a price. It can either be in Regina's mind or on her body. I can't-" She choked, "I can't leave her with this memory. Her own mother tried to take out her heart. She is only ten, it is too soon for her childhood to end. She deserves just a little more sweetness and laughter before she is a woman grown." _

 

_ He nodded wearily, he understood the price. _

 

_ "And you bear this." He took the swatch of her hair that had turned snow-white just after her fight with Cora ended. It stood out against the black of the rest of her hair. "As a token of your fight against my wife." He spat the last word out like poison, and to him it truly was. _

 

_ "Yes. I used powerful magic, Henry. Destructive magic, almost murderous. You know where my  _

_ journey started, how I came to be as I am. This is my price." She smiled, "And I happily pay it. For you and our Nightingale." _

 

_ He lowered his head and watched. Esmeralda carefully used her magic to heal all but one wound on Regina's small body. They disappeared as if it were never there at all. _

 

_ The wound that remained was a small cut on her lip. They both knew it would leave a scar on his little girl. "And Regina suffers twice. The injury to her lip and the injury to her heart when she finds you gone." _

 

_ He twisted the lock of white hair around his finger, "And I will lose half of my heart and soul. We bare this price, this burden. What does Cora lose?" _

 

_ He was crying again, but these were hot tears-of anger and hatred. "What does that witch pay?" _

_ She touched his face gently, "She pays with her soul, this is known. She will never find happiness or peace, or redemption. She has cursed herself with darkness and it will follow her to her grave and beyond." _

 

_ He leaned into her touch and turned it into a familiar caress. "And Regina as well." _

 

_ She leaned forward, and brushed her lips across his in a soft and gentle kiss. "No. She may fall, but she will never be so lost. You will be with her, My Love." She kissed him again, and let her lips linger on his. "And I will find The Swan." He kissed her this time, long and warm, full of love and want. "And we will save our Little One." _

 

_ They stayed that way all night. They talked in hushed voices as they lay on either side of the little girl they loved so much. She slipped away just before dawn, after Henry had finally succumbed to sleep. She looked down at them and smiled. She loved how the two brightest lights in her life slept together. Their dark hair and sleep-relaxed faces looked so sweet and so alike. She kissed each  _

_ of them on the forehead and left. _

 

_ No steps had ever been harder to take. No path so jagged and hurtful to her feet. No destiny had ever been harder to accept. Esmeralda had cleaved her soul in three pieces that morning and had only taken one of those pieces with her. _

 

_ She left with her head held high, even as her heart was breaking. She'd felt Cora's cold stare on her back for miles as she walked away. _

Esmeralda wiped her tears when she heard the front door open again. She didn't want to upset Regina. She was not an innocent baby anymore, but she was still Esmeralda's little one. She would do anything to protect Regina, even bend the truth a bit. The time for honesty would come, but at the moment, she just wanted to hug her Nightingale.

 

So she did. She walked through the house to meet her by the stairs.

Regina laughed and hugged her back. She smiled wide, and her eyes twinkled a little.

 

"My Little One, what has gotten into you?"

 

She asked, though she was reasonably sure that a certain blonde had everything to do with Regina's smile.

 

"Nothing, Nan, I'm just happy to have you to come home to."

 

She went to the kitchen for more coffee and Esmeralda followed. She watched her. She watched the way Regina unconsciously ran her finger along the small scar on her lip and the way her eyes were unfocused, distant.

 

She looked so much like her father. He had always looked the same after they had kissed, though he had stroked his mustache in place of a scar…

 

She blinked and looked Regina over again.

 

The Swan. Esmeralda felt a surge of excitement and renewed hope.

 

Cora didn't' know and would never understand. Esmeralda did, though, she always had in a way.

  
The Swan and The Queen would save each other. This was known.


	23. Chapter XXII: Beauties and Beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally posted on FF and has now been transferred in it's current entirety here. Updates will be published on both sites until this story is completed. 
> 
> I hope to complete this story this year.
> 
> Italics indicate a flashback.

Chapter XXII

Beauties and Beasts

 

Ruby was in the middle of her afternoon routine, getting the diner ready for it’s night-time role.  At night the diner became more of a cut-rate bar and grill.  They added table cloths and lowered the lights.  Ruby figured it was as close to an Applebees as Storybrooke could get.  Well, maybe a little bit better than Applebees, or so she hoped. 

Not that people had a ton of choices: Chinese, Pizza, Granny’s. If you wanted really fancy there was always Sebastian’s out by the Lighthouse.  Granny’s wasn’t gourmet like that; but Storybrooke liked what they did.  So as long as people came in, they would keep doing it. 

She leaned over one of the booth tables and smoothed out the cloth.  She heard the bell over the door jingle, but didn’t think much of it.  One of the others would help them.

“Hey-uh-Ruby.”

Cade was the middle of the three Winslow brothers. They, along with their father, ran the Storybrooke Print Shop.  It was a hold-over from their old-world lives.  They had pioneered the first Enchanted Forest printing press. So they said, at least. Ruby had never heard of it back then, of course back then she hadn't known how to read.  

He had the bundle of papers: _The Storybrooke Mirror_ : Evening Edition.  He looked uncomfortable.  She could smell the sour stink of sweat over the paper pulp and ink.

“Hey Cade.”  She offered a smile, hoping to cut through whatever wolf-related discomfort he was feeling.

“I just want you to know.”  He sat the papers down beside her stack of table cloths.  He cut the twine with his pocket knife and held up a single copy.  “We: Dad, Dane and Jacob and me, we don’t agree with this.  We have a contract, though, and had to do it.  It’s bullshit, and I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely upset.

She looked at the paper he was holding and her heart dropped into her stomach.  Half the page, above the fold, was a picture of her and a snarling wolf.  Someone had merged the two images in Photoshop. It looked terrible.  There were kids Henry's age that could do a far better job.  That was a funny, borderline hysterical, thought to have in the face of this completely screwed-up situation.

She took the paper and hoped Cade couldn’t see her hands shaking.  The headline read “Monsters Among Us”.

“It’s bad, the whole thing is just bad.”  He shoved his now empty hands in his pockets.  “Like I said, sorry.”  He left without another word, leaving her with a stack of newspapers that declared her a monster.  

She took them all to the backroom, which was Granny’s office and the break room and linen storage.

She, well the cursed version of herself, had a special stash.  She had tucked it behind the last stack of guest towels years and years ago. Ruby fished around and pulled out a bottle of cinnamon liqour.  It was still three-quarters full. The last time she'd drank it, she and Mary Margaret had been binge watching Real Housewives of Somewhere. Back when they had been a school teacher and a waitress in a one-horse town without a care in the world. Good times.  Ruby opened it and took a long drag. It scorched down her throat and to her stomach.  It was a good burn, it steadied her. Ruby chuckled, it was literal liquid courage.

The articles in the paper were just as bad as the pictures.  Maybe worse. Cade hadn’t been kidding.  It was all bad, terrible even. Bend over without lube bad. It was the old scare-your-children-strait  of sort of stuff. It annoyed her because stories of this world started to leak in. Like pentagrams on palms and being mortal enemies of vampires.  She had never even heard of vampires until she’d watched 

.  That had been in ‘85, back when Jim Carrey had still been funny.

 

Sidney Glass was an asshole and an idiot, no matter what goofy name he used. She was going to sock in him the jaw next time she saw him.  

The next article, because the whole paper was about her, was no better. It labeled her as Snow's personal attack dog, loyal to the hand that fed her and no one else.

Rude.

The next article was about Anita, her mother.  It rambled on and on  about her pack and how wild and chaotic they had been.  Ruby had run with those wolves, had befriended them, had slept in piles with them, laughed with them.  It had only been for a short time, but for that short time they had been her pack too.

The article also delved into stories about certain raids by the pack that had only helped The Evil Queen.

Ruby didn't know about that. She did know that Regina had disallowed the hunting of wolves in her kingdom.  Was that the influence of her mother?  She took another drink.  Esmeralda had known her Mom, she might know.

There were articles about her Granny, and even Gramps.  That would not sit well with Granny.  Not one bit.

Ruby winced and crumpled the paper when she saw the next article:  "Daughter Kills Mother on Snow White's Order"

It was not what happened, not even a little bit, but it still hurt.  It hurt like hell. She took another drink and let all the tears she'd been holding back flow down her cheeks.

Not for the first time, she wished that Emma had never broken the damn curse.  No one had feared Ruby Lucas, the small town waitress.  They had thought she was pretty, or sometimes a little slutty, funny and nice.  They had trusted her with their kids and rushed to get a smooch from her when she ran the kissing booth on Miner’s Day.  They had cheered her on she arm-wrestled or played darts at The Rabbit Hole. They’d thought of her as a friend, not a monster.  Now Sidney-Freaking-Glass had decided that past twenty-eight years didn’t matter.  All she was, all she had been or would be was a beast.

 

* * *

Belle stormed into the Diner with a crumpled copy of the paper in her fist.  Zach, one of the busboys, didn’t even welcome her, he only sighed. The entire staff seemed subdued and the usually packed-to-capacity diner was almost empty.

"Where are they?"

Zach sighed again, "Granny left-don't know where.”  He half-heartedly swept the floor.  “And Ruby" He hitched his head towards the back.  “She’s in the break room.”

Belle nodded and headed towards the catch-all room by the kitchen.  She was going to make sure Ruby was okay, Employees Only sign or not.  She didn’t bother to knock, the time for good manners had passed.

Her heart clenched and started to ache when she entered the room.  

Ruby was a mess:  crying and well on her way to being stinking drunk.

She was wearing tight, faded jeans with holey knees. She looked like a rebellious teen with her plaid shirt.  It would have been convincing if not for the shirt with happy breakfast food dancing on it underneath.

Yes, the oh-so-dangerous Child of the Moon, so intimidating and scary.

She sat down beside Ruby and arranged her skirt.  She had let Ruby lock her away once, but never again.  Ruby needed her and she was not going anywhere.

"What are we drinking?"

Ruby turned to look at her, unpainted-lips tugged into a crooked smile.  She didn’t answer but did offer the bottle with a wiggle of her wrist.

Belle took the almost-half-full bottle out of Ruby's hand and drank straight from it. Then she sputtered, and wished she could re-think the last twenty-seconds of her life.

"Good God, that is vile!”  

She coughed and scrunched her nose, trying to get the noxious taste off her tongue.  She put the bottle down with a hard clink of glass-on-tile.

Ruby kept grinning at her, like she was the funniest thing she’d ever seen.  

This alcohol was nothing like the wine, spirits, or even the ale that she had drank before. “If we're going to get drunk can we at least not die?”

Ruby giggled, and looked far too cute doing so, "Don't knock Fireball. It is a big step up from the sludge they used to distill in the forest. That stuff could peel paint right off the wall.” Ruby grinned again, wide and toothy,  "And there are even stouter liquors here too. I might need 'em too. Damn wolf constitution." She snorted, “Damn wolf everything."

Belle settled her arm over Ruby's shoulder and pulled her close.  Heat washed over her and Belle drew in a deep breath.  Beyond the artificial cinnamon and the drink there was forest and wood smoke, comfort and a sense of home.

"Sidney Glass and all his cronies aren't worth the paper this drivel is printed on," She squeezed Ruby closer, "You are Child of the Moon and a granddaughter and a friend and more.  You are a great person, Ruby Lucas."

Ruby looped her arm around and Belle's waist. She felt every inch of skin Ruby touched tingle, even through her clothes.

"This town”  Ruby laid her head on Belle’s shoulder, “is going to Hell in a handbasket.  The paper is probably the least of our problems.  Stupid paper."

Belle sighed and breathed in the scent of Ruby’s hair:  sandalwood and sweet-pea.  “It almost makes me miss Mayor Mills."

Ruby threw her head back, laughed, and completely ignored the fact that her skull smacked the wall.  "She must be so mad. They mentioned her in there with me. She apparently had a soft-spot for wolves.  By next week I’ll be her pet puppy according to them."

Ruby laughed again,  "Well she used to let me babysit Henry, so maybe she does like wolves."

Belle couldn't help herself, "Well I do have a soft spot for you,  Wolf, and anyone who has a problem with you can speak with me."

She picked up the bottle, drank and choked, "But I'm serious. If we keep drinking I'll need something else.  Something that doesn't taste like cinnamon sprinkled over pitch."

"Anything for you, My Princess."

Ruby was smiling again, and looking at her with bright green eyes that Belle swore could see right into her soul.  The wolf-woman was effortlessly sexy, even when she should be sloppy drunk.

Belle muffled a chuckle behind her palm as Ruby stood up, all limbs and awkward angles, and offered her a hand.

Belle took her hand, “You do know that I’m not actually a princess, right?"

Ruby pulled her up with a little more strength than Belle had expected.  She stumbled right into her arms. For a moment Belle was dizzy with sensation. It popped and fizzled in her blood. A small and distant voice reminded her that she was treading treacherous water.  She did love Rumpel, after all.  A much louder voice reminded her that nowhere and no one was safer than Ruby.  Ruby needed her, she couldn’t leave now.

“Come My Librarian”  Ruby executed an over-the-top bow, “We'll fetch you some wine, or cognac or whatever I think Granny won't notice missing."  She tugged Belle along, "Ooh I think we have one of the special bottles of The Queen's cider on reserve." Ruby winked, "She may be evil, but she knows her booze."

Ruby ducked behind the diner counter as they re-entered the main room, and grabbed a bottle.  It was a plain bottle with a handwritten label and a red wax seal.  It looked like it had traveled over from the old land when the curse was cast, but the label said 1997.  

Ruby took her hand again and lead her to the back booth.  As soon as Belle sat, Ruby scooched close so their aides were flush from ankle to shoulder.  Her whole body buzzed with her touch.  Or the alcohol, Belle reasoned.  The alcohol, what little of it she’d had, was messing with her.  That must be it.

“Hey”  Ruby nudged her side, “I wonder if it would taste good if we mixed it?  Apples and cinnamon, like pie!”

Ruby's carefree grin was catching, and Belle couldn’t help but go along with her.  "That sounds like a very bad idea."  Even as she said it, she started to open the cider.  They filled two glasses:  half with the fireball and half with cider.

“No, no! It's a great idea, My Librarian."

Belle couldn't help it.   Maybe it was the alcohol.  Maybe it was Ruby’s smile.   Maybe it was the way her job title slipped off the other woman’s tongue like an honorific. It didn't matter, Belle decided.  In for a penny, in for a pound.   She picked up one of the glasses, "Well drink up, My Wolf."

They drained their glasses like seasoned drunken pros.   Belle had to admit that in combination with the cider, the Fireball wasn't so bad. It actually was good.

"Where is my Granny anyway?" Ruby asked no one in particular.

Ashley looked up from where she was re-stocking napkin dispensers nearby, "Don't know, but she left her crossbow, so that's probably good, right?"

 

* * *

There were several places that she could have gone.   Tonight Eugenia Lucas walked from her home and business straight to Mifflin Street.   It wasn't her first choice, but it was her best one.  Regina Mills might not be mayor anymore, but she still wielded plenty of power.  If anyone could bring Sidney to heel, it would be Regina.  The woman was savvy and had to know that just because she hadn't been yet, it didn’t mean she wasn’t on his hit list.  If she wouldn’t see reason, she would make the woman see it.  

She rang the doorbell and waited.  She wanted this settled. Well, she wanted to settle it herself.  Putting a bolt or two in Sidney's soft spots would do the trick.  It would also land her into a hot mess of trouble. No, she had to swallow her pride and ask for the Evil Queen’s help.  Damn it all.

The door opened a moment later and Granny was mildly surprised at what she saw.  Regina had an apron on over casual clothes.  The woman wiped her hands across the front of the hand-painted “World’s Best Cook!” apron.  She seemed surprised to see her.

“Good Evening, Ms. Lucas.”   She raised a single brow, “are you here to see Esmeralda?”

Granny's nose was still one of her best weapons.  She could smell chicken broth, spices and baking bread. Regina was making dinner, not conjuring up curses.  It seemed safe enough.

“No. I’m here about this.”  She held up the paper so Regina could see it.  She  wanted to shove it in the Queen’s face, but held back.

“Your lapdog  did this, Your Majesty.”  Well, she was holding back as much as she could.  “He dragged my family through the mud for your politics.”

Regina took the paper and read it over.  It was obvious that this was the first time she’d seen it.   Still, her face was impassive, blank, unreadable.  Even her scent, her heartbeat, her breathing didn’t change.  They stayed steady and calm.  Was it her royal act?  Her years spent as a mayor? Esmeralda’s influence?  Or did she just not care?  Granny couldn’t tell.

"Sidney.'' Her voice was half-annoyance and half-sigh.  “This kind of smear campaign is right up his alley.”

Regina pursed her lips, “But you’re right.  This is political.”  She riffled through the pages and scowled more and more as she scanned the articles.  “But that makes no sense.  Neither you nor Ruby have any political power, not outside of Snow’s inner circle at least.”  Her dark eyes flicked up, “No offence, of course.”

Granny was well aware that she wasn’t a damn politician or noble.  “So why is he printing this shit?”

Regina blinked at her, and her face betrayed a little bit of shock.   Granny realized that she had never cursed in front of the other woman.  Well she wasn’t an angel, and neither was Regina.  She imagined they’d both heard their fair share of soldier talk.

“I don’t know.  I don't have any control over Sidney or the paper, but even if I did, why would I attack you and your granddaughter?  I have no quarrel with you.”

She frowned, “This seems like an indirect attack on Snow.  They’re using the two of you to get to her.”  She closed the paper, folded it and tucked it under her arm.  “Most of this is either personal or made-up conjecture."  Regina sighed, "Honestly? This reeks of Leah's meddling."

"Regina?”  Another voice joined the conversation.  “Is that Little Henry and Your Swan?''

Esmeralda came into the foyer and due to her height could see her over Regina’s shoulder.  “Eugenia.'' She smiled, which caused her scars to ripple. It should have looked ugly, but on Esmeralda it almost seemed natural. “Why are you letting your guest stand outside?”  Her voice was strong and a little on the accusatory side, “ I taught you better. Hospitality is the mark of a civilized home."

It was an old saying, something that had gone out of style when the old-timers had started to die off when 

had been a child.  It was a Romani saying, and Regina responded to it.  In fact, she turned bright red with something that might have been embarrassment.  

"My apologies, Ms. Lucas, please come in."

It was high time someone knocked Regina down a peg.  Watching Esmeralda talk to the Evil Queen the same way she talked to Red was damn near comical.  Red. She looked at Esmeralda. If Red had a Godmother, this woman would be it.  She stepped inside the manor and inclined her head.

"That Rat wrote several unbecoming articles about my past. My husband. My granddaughter."

She met Esmeralda's eyes, "And Anita."

Those eyes, the clearest and greenest Granny had ever seen, flashed.

"Nightingale," She held out her hand, "Show me."

It took only a moment but now the air crackled with magic. A strong scent of cinnamon flooded her nose.  Esmeralda's scars turned from faded pink to scarlet.

“They dare speak ill of the dead? They know not of Anita's life or her heart. Her journey. How dare this Paper Man ?”  Her accent grew heavier and her mouth twisted into a scowl.  

It was nice, satisfying, a justification of her own anger. She hadn't known how close her daughter and Esmeralda had been, but now it was clear that they had been very close. Close enough that the other woman was ready to go on the warpath.  

"Regina.”  Her voice was as hard as steel.  It reminded Granny of Regina when she was handing out Mayoral orders.   “Who did this?''

The younger woman scowled too, and the expression was almost identical to Esmeralda’s. "Well, I know nothing for certain. There are puppet strings here."  She paused for a moment  "And I recognize those now ."

Whatever that meant, Granny figured that Regina didn't want to talk about it.  She brushed it aside and let Regina continue with her thoughts.

"This has George's fingerprints all over it. He has a special hatred for Children of the Moon, or any creature not pure human."

She wandered into the den and they followed., "But he's too blunt. He is a hammer, even when he thinks he's being sneaky.  This is different.  This is not a hammer.”  She motioned at the paper, “This is a scalpel."  She bit her lip and closed her eyes, as if to focus harder.

Granny realized that behind the megalomania and the drama Regina was a politician at heart.  She was just as smart and skilled as she wanted people to think.

Her eyes flew open and she slapped her hands on the side table. "Those  royal rats have finally set aside their pettiness and struck an alliance."

Hospitality forgotten Regina padded out of the room and to her home office, ranting as she went.  It was then that Granny missed the signature sound of high heels. Regina was barefoot.  Of course she was in her own home, but the sight of the mayor without her heels was just odd.  Damn odd.  Twenty-eight, or was it closer to twenty-nine years now, and she had never even seen the woman in flats.

"George and Stephen’s kingdoms were both struggling. Midas and Leopold were too rich and powerful to challenge.  I was considered too powerful to challenge after that.  George’s ham-handed attempts at marrying his son off for money failed. They failed in the worst possible way.  That was as political as he could be.”   She started to pull files out, completely unfazed by the fact that Granny was watching her.

"They are goading _his_  enemies: first David and now Ruby. Leah is setting George up to take the fall for whatever

has planned.” She held up a single finger, "Sidney doesn't come cheap,though. Not anymore."

She furrowed her brow, "And Leah would not use her own money, or her insipid husband’s either.  She’s cleaner than that, smarter.  George’s assets are frozen.  I had the bank do so after he killed Mr. Gustoff-Billy.”

“What?”  Granny interrupted her.  “He got away with that scott-free.”

Regina looked up from her files. “I couldn’t get him jailed, but I did take what steps I could.  I stripped him of his position and froze his assets. I also had his car impounded.   David should have issued a warrant, but he was  busy with Snow being gone.”

Granny hadn’t realized Regina had even looked into the murder.  She hadn't realized Regina had known or cared about George’s accusations against Ruby.

“I thought that my involvement would hurt Ruby more than help, so I stayed away.” Regina answered her unstated question in an almost-whisper.

That was true, The Evil Queen backing the Big Bad Wolf would have made things a lot messier.  

"Right now, though" Regina continued, "there is something going on beyond what I can see. I hate that."

Granny was out of patience. She had come for answers, not rambling. “They're not going to turn Storybrooke into their battleground. Not on my watch."

Regina folded her arms over her chest and looked at the papers and files now spread across her desk. , "I can't fix everything, but I do have one idea."

Instead of explaining, which would have been nice, Regina picked up her Blackberry. Eugenia couldn't hear who was on the other line. When Regina's cheeks turned rosy again, she raised a brow and looked to Esmeralda.  Her old acquaintance looked pleased as punch about whatever was going on over the phone.  

"Miss Swan, this is a completely professional call."

Oh.  Well that was it then, wasn’t it?  Not that Granny hadn’t seen that coming from a mile and a half away.  Emma and Regina got on like a wildfire: hot and unpredictable.  They were as likely to kiss as they were to kill each other.

Esmeralda now looked like she was the cat who had got the canary. Oh that sneaky Romani, Granny shook her head in amusement, was playing match-maker. She was going for broke too: Regina Mills and Emma Swan. It would either be the greatest love story of all time or a disaster that no one would survive. There was no in between.

"Tomorrow, at noon. Yes at Granny's."

Regina was smiling.  It was a small but warm and genuine smile that was usually reserved for Henry.

“Wear your uniform.  Yes, the tie too.”  She only paused a moment to let Emma answer before continuing.  “Bring David and Snow.”  Regina huffed, “No. No, Miss Swan, we're making a statement. The paper is all well and good but lunch time at Grannys is much better, more effective."

They exchanged a few more words before ending the call, with Regina sending her love to her son.

Esmeralda seemed satisfied with whatever Regina had in mind.  "She reminds me of her father sometimes. He had a head for strategy and a heart for loving.''  

Granny shook her head. It was odd to think that anyone could look at The Evil Queen and smile, but love was love.

"Come”  Esmeralda touched her elbow with gentle fingers, “lets leave her to her scheming. I have tea brewing."

Had anyone told her she would find herself having tea in The Evil Queen's kitchen this morning...Well, she would have whacked them for their stupidity.   Here she was, though, and maybe it wasn’t so strange after all.


	24. Chapter XXIII: Civics 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The previous version of this chapter contained some formatting errors.

Chapter XXIII

Civics 101

Emma tugged at her tie. She had traded the skirt out for uniform pants, but she still felt uncomfortable. She looked at herself in the mirror in the Station's tiny bathroom and turned from one side to the other. She fought with her tie, her badge, her shirt buttons. She was a mess. After ten minutes, she looked better but the damn tie was still crooked.

Emma Swan, Sheriff. It still sounded weird, even in her head.

She fussed with her hair, and wondered exactly why she was so focused on her looks. Oh yeah, Regina had said to look professional. Emma definitely didn't want to let her down. That meant looking on-point, like a real cop or the Army or whatever. She wasn't quite butch enough to be Season 2 Olivia Benson. So she'd braided her blonde mop and then pinned it up and back. It was the first time that she'd had used bobby pins for their legal and intended function.

She grinned at herself in the mirror, "Not too bad, Swan. Not bad at all."

It was eleven thirty and she could already hear sharp heel-clicks coming down the hall. She ducked out of the bathroom and waited for Regina to arrive. Once that would have made her annoyed. Now? After kissing Regina Mills, all Emma could feel was anticipation. Emma chuckled, "antici-" she paused and shimmied her hips, "pation."

Regina strutted into the Sheriff's Office like she owned it. She was dressed in her Madam Mayor best: a black pant suit with a vest. The outfit was designer and wouldn't have looked out of place at some fancy law firm or bank. It was also mouth-watering and stunning. It clung to every curve and teased barely covered cleavage. Sweet Willy Wonka and the whole damn chocolate factory, Emma loved that vest. She needed to check the town-by-laws because looking that gorgeous had to be illegal.

It was a total 180 from the day before. Casual Soccer Mom Regina was long gone but this woman, Her Royal Hotness, was still smiling at her. "You clean up well, Sheriff Swan."

She put her armful of things, a book and some folders, on the desk. She came closer and Emma couldn't look away. Regina wasn't just a woman, she was an experience. Her scent was warm and inviting, apples, honeysuckle musk. The heat from her flawless olive skin. Her laugh, though rare, was spine-tingling. What got Emma the most, though, were her whiskey-and-trouble colored eyes. Emma would swear to whatever fairy tales held holy that they were pure magic. If they could bottle and sell Regina's essence, no one in Storybrooke would have to work again.

"Uh" Classic Emma "You too."

In her defense, Regina was too sexy for anyone's good.

"Your tie." Regina reached out and gently tugged it into place.

It was a sexy yet domestic move. Emma could, for a moment, see that Regina was just as unsure as she was. It was in the tentative touch, the way her lips twitched and her brow furrowed for just a moment. Yes, they were in uncharted territory but they were in it together.

So Emma followed her instincts and ignored her paranoid inner voice (it sounded like the quick-to-panic Foster Mom #4 for some reason). She wrapped her arms around Regina's waist. They stood there for a moment, the two of them sharing space and breath, "Thanks."

Regina rested her hands on Emma's shoulders, but didn't push her away. If anything it seemed like she was about to wrap herself around Emma. "You're welcome."

They stood there together, quiet but not awkward. They could have stayed that way for hours, well Emma could have, at least. They were rudely interrupted by the sound of Emma's phone. The cymbal crash meant a text message, and she knew what that meant without looking. She hissed out as sigh, "And that would be David, already at the diner."

Emma remembered that they actually had shit to do. This wasn't a casual visit, no matter what she wanted. She let Regina's waist go, ending their hug and offered her arm to the woman instead, "Mayor Mills".

Regina smirked, picked up the folders in one arm and linked her other through Emma's. "Sheriff Swan."

They walked out together. Which was definitely to show a united front and not because they wanted to touch each other. The walk to Granny's was short, but nice.

Regina reminded her of what they were doing. Her voice was velvet and heat and made it a little hard to focus on the meaning of the words.

Still, Emma had some questions, "It seems, I dunno, political. Like something from The West Wing."

Regina tilted her head a bit, "Politics aren't so different in any world. They're baiting your parents." Regina's face twitched, a hint of a smirk or a scowl. It had been a micro-expression that read like disgust. "Because they know that they will react. While your parents have true love, politics are not their forte."

Emma smiled and nodded. Snow and David were as politically savvy as Cookie Monster and Elmo. Even if she didn't say it out loud, it didn't mean that she hadn't caught onto that little fact about her parents.

"David and Snow are naive, and they were war-time rulers. There is more to ruling-leading then dashing deeds and hope speeches. Real leadership is long and boring. It is about treaties, trade, patience and politicking."

"And you're the queen for the job?" Emma snickered at her own play on words.

Regina didn't seem to notice the joke, "I was queen in a king's world, and a princess before that. My parents taught me how to navigate the world of nobility as a lady and a leader." She frowned, "Though I don't know if they expected me to apply my lessons the way I did. My Mother considered me to be weak, and my father-I think he was afraid of me."

"Well" How the hell was she supposed to respond to that? Regina's voice hitched on the word afraid. Emma almost wished Esmeralda was there. The older woman always seemed to know what to say to Regina to boot her out of her self-deprecating funks. Still, Emma had to at least try. "All curses aside, you're actually a pretty good mayor. Look at this place: no crime, good schools, low taxes and even the buses run right on time. Anywhere else in America and you'd be Governor by now. Besides your plan is way better than mine."

Regina raised a sassy brow, "You had a plan?"

It was almost like she hadn't heard the praise. Emma saw the little smile and heard the slight change in her voice, though. She had just scored big points with Regina. Emma shrugged and moved on, "It involved my boot and Sidney's ass." He'd had it coming for a while. "Like I said, though, your idea is better, smarter and the right thing to do for the whole town."

She still wanted to beat Sidney up and down Main Street. If Emma was right, and she was pretty sure she was, Regina didn't like Sidney all that much. She tolerated him as a gopher and go-to for dirty work, but she didn't seem to trust him. There was a story behind that. Something beyond The Book. Maybe one day, Emma would be brave enough to ask. Maybe one day Regina would trust enough to tell her about it.

Emma sucked in a deep breath. They were at Granny's front door and the show was about to start. "Ready?''

Regina gave a short nod.

Emma opened the door and held it for open. Because, as she had just mentioned, Regina was a lady and Emma figured she should treat her like one. "After you."

Regina squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and walked in. She acted like she was still a queen, a mayor and a movie star. All that and more, wrapped up on a hot black suit.

The entire diner came to a screeching halt and though Emma was behind her and couldn't see it, she knew Regina's bright red lips had stretched into a fake smile.

"Good afternoon everyone."

She looked around like a queen viewing her subjects. Which, Emma supposed, more or less accurate.

"The Sheriff needs a moment of your time and since we're all here-"

Emma looked ever the crowd. Regina had been night. Leah and Steve-Stephen-Whatever were there. So were half the dwarves, Archie, Mother Superior,a hand full of her fairies and lots of town people.

They couldn't have planned it better.

They were the center of attention. Even Granny's line-cooks poked their heads out of the kitchen. Regina gave everyone one more long and steely glare before she stepped aside. Now every eye in the place was on Emma. Emma in her fancy uniform. Official Business Sheriff reporting for duty. No pressure.

"During my absence." She had practiced her speech in the mirror while fighting with her stupid tie. "Two deputies stood up and filled in for me. They worked together to keep Storybrooke safe. Now that I am back, it is time to make it official."

She took a deep breath.

"Storybrooke elected me. I swore to protect and serve the citizens of this town. Not as a savior, but as a sheriff. I swore to uphold the law without favor or prejudice. I am here for everyone, no matter who they are or who they were before."

She looked across the room, "And as Sheriff only I have the power to hire deputies. So I am announcing that my deputies are David Nolan and Ruby Lucas. They both protected this town and it's people. They did it with no compensation, no hesitation and no expectation of reward."

Another breath. It was just like talking to the mirror. (It wasn't)

"David. Ruby."

David, who had been sitting with Snow, stood up and brushed the crumbs off of his green and blue plaid shirt. Ruby had already been standing but she almost fell over. Emma smiled at her when she realized that Granny hadn't warned her ahead of time.

Regina stepped beside her, shoulder to shoulder. She handed her the folders, "Their contracts." she had the book with her, "And the Storybrooke Town Charter to take their oath on."

Then Regina turned to Snow. There was no hint of animosity or anything else. Her face was pleasant and calm, like this sort of thing was an everyday occurrence. "It is traditional for a family member or spouse to hold it during the oath."

"This!" Stephen stood up so fast that his chair tipped over behind him and smacked the floor, "is ridiculous!''

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Regina Mills is not the mayor. She's not a queen. She is nothing."

"That's where you're wrong, Steve." Emma stared him down and used his curse-name to emphasize her point. "She's my official witness for this and a public notary."

Regina was, Emma had learned, many things. The years before Henry had given her plenty of time to acclimate to the real world. She had scooped up handfuls of degrees and certifications in her spare time. Almost twenty years of spare time made for a lot of learning. One of the many certifications was the notary thing. Which reminded her that come April Regina was damn well going to put her CPA to good use to file Emma's taxes for her.

Regina's smile, a royal version of a shit-eating-grin lit up the room.

"Now" Regina turned to David, "Please place your hand on the charter and repeat after me."

Emma watched and tried to look official while he gave his oath to protect, serve and uphold the town charter. This was all a dog-and-pony show, Emma knew that. It was the modern equivalent of a knighting ceremony, or so Regina had said. It was all about legitimizing the power structure, or something. Even though it was an act, Emma couldn't help but feel proud. She was apart of something, something real and important.

After David finished reciting his oath, Regina handed her a gilded box. On the velvet pillow inside were two silver deputies badges. Well, it was little more than tin, but the meaning in the tin was the important thing, Emma understood that now. The badge felt heavy in her hand. Heavy with responsibility and something more, something that might be honor. Emma's heart skipped a beat. This was happening.

She pinned the badge on her Dad's shirt then did something she'd only seen done on TV, she saluted him. He saluted back, they shook hands and then, David lost it a little and pulled her into a tight hug. The entire diner, Steve and Lia excepted, burst into loud applause.

Regina had been right, there had to be pomp, circumstances and official proceedings. The town needed it. They all needed structure and normalcy. They needed Storybrooke.

"Miss Lucas." Regina spoke as David signed his official city contract. Regina notated and officiated the document with graceful efficiency. "I believe your grandmother would like to record the ceremony."

Granny already had a bulky hand-camcorder out, pride written all over her face.

"Would you like someone special to hold the charter for you?"

She looked around, "Miss French" Regina's words made an unusually rumpled Belle jerk in surprise."Would you do the honors?''

Emma didn't know what Regina's angle was. Whatever it was, it worked. Ruby's eyes lit up like Christmas and her smile was so wide it had to hurt.

"Would you Belle, please?"

There was no way in Hell that Belle could refuse the actual puppy-dog-eyes Ruby was shining at her.

Snow handed the leather-bound book, complete with the city's seal on the cover, to Belle. She frowned a little. Maybe she had expected to hold it for her old friend too? Emma didn't know, but she didn't doubt Regina's judgment on the matter. Ruby and Belle looked so excited, it was just too cute.

They went through the same ceremony, but Emma had a feeling that it meant way more for Ruby then it did David. Emma got that. The werewolf shit in the paper had been just that, bullshit. Emma trusted Ruby with her life. Regina trusted her with Henry's life and that was saying something. Ruby was as good a person as Emma had ever met and she wanted the other woman on her team.

She saluted Ruby after pinning the badge onto her white waitress's uniform shirt. She swore she could see tears in the woman's eyes.

"You two." She spoke to her brand new employees. "Celebrate today all you want. Report to the Sheriff's Station tomorrow at eight so we can start the real work."

A bright flash caught her eye and Emma belatedly realized that there was a paparazzi in the room. A blonde man in a plain gray work-shirt that Emma knew by face but  
not name, had been taking pictures the whole time. He didn't look like he worked for the paper. He had to be a freelancer and Emma would bet that Regina had everything to do with him being there. Smart woman. Sidney wouldn't say anything nice about today. Those would be nice, official pictures to document everything, just to spite him.

Emma looked around, "Everyone have a good day."

She walked out with Regina right behind her and made sure she held the door open for the other woman. She felt great, like she had actually done something good. Not as a savior or as a magical fairy tale princess, but as a person.

Regina seemed pretty pleased too. She was smiling. She was smiling her real smile. Emma could tell the difference between her fake smile and this one. Of course she was happy, her plan had gone off without a hitch. Even Stevie's protest had gone in their favor. He'd looked like an idiot.

Emma kinda wanted to celebrate. The memory of kissing Regina flashed in her head. Now that would be a great way to celebrate. Which was a different issue, altogether. One that she both wanted to avoid and explore.

In all the gin joints in all the world, Regina Mills had strut right into hers. Okay, so technically she had been the one to waltz into Regina's Cider Bar, but whatever.

She held her arm out for Regina again, and she took it without hesitation or fuss.

"You did very well in there, Sheriff."

Emma grinned and controlled the urge to skip and shout with glee. Getting praise from Regina was like getting a perfect spin on a Vegas roulette wheel. Jackpot! She tried to play it cool, though. She tugged at her tie. "I guess I did all right. I will just be glad to get out of this uniform. It's not my style."

They walked back towards Town Hall slowly, and Emma soaked up her alone-time with Regina.

"Pity." Regina looked her up and down, "I think it suits you."

Emma almost tripped over her own polished shoes at that.

"Why Mrs. Mills, you're trying to seduce me, aren't you?"

Regina raised a brow, "Aren't you a little young to be quoting The Graduate?"

Emma tugged her tie again, "Aren't you a little royal to have a woman in uniform fetish?'

Regina's eyes widened at that and her cheeks turned pink, "Miss Swan!"

Emma couldn't help it, she laughed, "Sorry, I could not help myself."

Regina was stiff but did not disentangle their arms. "I hope you don't talk like that around our son."

City Hall was getting closer and Emma wanted to drag her feet or even stop walking. "Yup. I even unlocked the nudie channel on Mary Margaret's cable box so he can watch it."

Regina's facial expression was priceless.

"Okay, maybe not. Calm down, Tiger Mom, I would never do that to our kid." she squeezed Regina's arm. "Henry is a great kid and even my terrible influence can't undo years of your great mom-ing."

Regina's smile came back, only a little, but Emma counted it as a victory.

They were at the station's door. "Well." Regina sighed. "You need to file those contracts: the carbon copy stays here for records and the official copy goes to the Admin Department for city records. Drop them with Marge, she'll know what to do. I've already sent notice to payroll and memos to the budget-supervisor and the head of HR."

Emma listened, kind of but mostly, she watched Madam Mayor in her element. She reminded her of the guy from Futurama. The one who had sung about being a bureaucrat. That would be Regina's theme song because she had this stuff down pat.

"Miss Swan are you listening to me?"

Emma nodded," You are ridiculously good at being Mayor."

Regina's little smile disappeared, "I was." She shook whatever job-loss related funk off, or she tried to at least. "It doesn't matter."

It did.

"Would you be so kind to walk me to my car?"

Emma nodded, Regina didn't want to go, either.

She escorted the brunette around the side of the building and towards the parking lot.

"If you survive the celebration tonight, would you like to have breakfast tomorrow?"

Hot damn was Regina asking her on a date?

"You, Henry and me at Granny's?"

Okay so a third-wheel date, but Emma would take it. Wait-

"Wait, what celebration?"

They were at Regina's pristine Mercedes and she had gone so far to open the car door for the other woman. She was the actual daughter of Prince Charming, after all.

Regina smiled again, "If I know Miss Lucas, and I do. She will want to celebrate at the Rabbit Hole and you're invited."

A night of drinking after a day of responsibility sounded great. She could not remember the last time she'd had a minute to unwind with other adults. Ones that hadn't involved some unwanted Dungeons and Dragons quest, at least.

"Well I- "

Regina sat down in her car with grace that shouldn't even be possible in heels and Emma's phone rang.

She didn't even need to look at the caller-id. Regina didn't seem surprised. Emma rolled her eyes while Shakira's "She Wolf" blasted from her iphone.

"So party tonight and breakfast tomorrow?'' But she definitely wasn't getting permission or anything like that.

Regina looked up at her through her lashes. "It's a date."

Emma almost fell over. Regina's eyes were pure sex and her voice husked and just damn!

"You should answer your phone." With that Regina closed her car door, started the engine and drove away.

Ruby's call went to voicemail because Emma's brain had short-circuited. Regina Mills was a weapon of mass seduction. Emma watched her drive away and only when she had turned the corner and was out of sight could Emma even try to think straight again. She called Ruby back and just like Regina had said, there was a party.

"As my friend, but not my boss because that would be weird."

Because there was nothing else in their life that was weird. Emma shook her head loosened her tie and opened her collar. She was only partying with The Big Bad Wolf. Then having breakfast with the Evil Queen.

Nothing weird at all.


	25. Chapter XXIV:  Take A Look It's In A Book

Chapter XXIV

Take A Look It’s In A Book

  
  


Holding the charter while Ruby gave her oath of office was one of the proudest moments of Belle's life.

 

If only there hadn't been an ogre stomping in her head while it happened. She felt dreadful. She was never drinking with Ruby again.  She wasn’t drinking ever again, period. The other woman didn't even have a headache and Belle felt like death.  Well, death might be preferable to the hangover.

 

Still though, sickness aside, it had been fun. They had talked and drank. At some point they had danced to an incomprehensibly fast-paced song.  Everything had been so different, so unfettered.  Free.  Ruby had brought out a side of herself that Belle hadn't even known existed.

 

She’d woke up in bed with a very cuddly and half-naked werewolf. Horrifying nausea aside, it had been the nicest thing she could imagine waking up to.  It was also something she felt like she could get used to.  Being with Ruby made her feel sure of herself and joyful.

Now, a thick layer of greasy food on her stomach and a civil ceremony later, she felt better.  She didn't regret a minute of it. She wouldn't let herself regret it.  She pushed the guilt aside.  She would not feel guilty for having fun.  She would not feel guilty for living a free life.  She'd spent far too many years locked up, thank you very much.    Emma and Regina, Sheriff and Mayor, left and the diner fell silent. 

 

Granny sat down her camcorder and hugged Ruby. She was so proud.  Yesterday's paper had been so horrible.  It was lovely to see everyone showing the Lucas Ladies kindness and support. 

 

Belle suspected that the very public spectacle was a political move.  It was a calculated reaction to the newspaper.  She also had a sneaking suspicion that Regina had orchestrated it.  The Evil Queen was very intelligent, informed and observant.  She also had a dark knack for manipulating people.  Belle would know.  In this case, though, she didn’t mind.  Regina had, for once, used her cruel mind for someone’s else’s good.   Even if it was only a side effect of whatever her grand scheme was.

 

Regina’s kind deed aside, it was well deserved recognition for both David and Ruby.

 

"Belle!” She was almost knocked off her feet by Ruby's excited hug.  "A Deputy! I am a deputy!" 

 

Ruby’s enthusiasm lit up her face.  It made her look more beautiful than ever.  Butterflies replaced nausea.  It was impossible to resist the urge to touch.   Belle reached out and tapped her finger on the star shaped badge, "I, for one, will sleep safer knowing that you are on duty, Deputy Lucas."

 

Ruby immediately turned as mad as her famous cloak.  She was adorable, and not like a puppy or a small child, like-well something else.  Something that lit a fire in her chest and made her tongue feel thick and useless in her mouth.  Belle didn’t want to examine it at the moment.  She didn’t want to think too hard about it all, not yet.  There were consequences and other people (Rumpel) to think about too.  At the moment, she  wanted to enjoy this moment with the other woman. So she did.

 

"You” Ruby grabbed her around the waist and twirled her around.” Have to come out and celebrate with me.”

 

Belle immediately shook her head. “Absolutely not! I’m still not sure I survived last night, I can not do it again!"

 

Because one night was one thing, but two nights in the row could be something else entirely.  Something that went past the line of friendly.  

 

Something that she should only be thinking about with Rumpel. Besides, even if she did want that sort of more-than-friendly thing with Ruby.  She wasn't even sure what that would be.  The other woman could not want the same.  She didn't even seem very disappointed by Belle’s answer .   She only laughed, "Librarians are light weights!"

 

Belle rolled her eyes at the supposed-insult. "Go have fun, Ruby, we will meet up tomorrow for lunch, after all the partying."

 

Granny smacked Ruby on the arm with a folded towel, "Go on and get out of here. You're going to be useless today, Deputy."

 

Ruby hugged her grandmother again.  The love between them was so visible, honest, and there.  There were no reservations.  Sometimes Granny was gruff, but her love for Ruby was so real.  Belle missed that sort of love, the sort of love her mother had shown her.  Her father had tried, she winced.  He had tried to destroy her.  Rumpel had, well that was far more complicated.  She rubbed her temples.  Complicated was not something she could contemplate at the moment.  The dim quiet of her library sounded perfect right now.

 

Ruby hugged Snow and shook David, her fellow deputy's, hand.  She all but tore off her apron in her excitement.  She was so happy, and she wasn’t the only one.  A few others: dwarves, Marco, Archie and the entire Granny's staff also congratulated her with hugs, cheers, handshakes, and back-slapping. 

 

Belle stood by, watched and enjoyed seeing Ruby so happy. It was the polar opposite of how she had found her the night before.

 

Ruby took off for her room at the connected Inn, the one Belle had spent the night in.  Now that was another very complicated matter.  Belle sat back on

her stool with a groan.  Now that all the excitement was over she was going back to dying.  She took a sip of the black coffee that Granny had told her would cure her hangover.  She winced at the bitter taste and hoped it worked fast.

 

“Here you are."

 

Mulan appeared, like magic, at her side.  Belle jumped at her sudden words. The woman should wear bells or at least have the courtesy to appear with a swirl of colored smoke. 

 

"You did not return home after you stomped away muttering about murder. I thought it best to either locate you or visit the local jail to barter for your release." She tilted her head, “Or find an appropriate place to discard of the body.”

 

Her delivery was so dry and matter-of-fact. If Belle didn't see the mischievous  glimmer in her eye she would have thought she was serious.

 

“Funny, Mulan, very funny."

 

"You drank too much alcohol last night. You are guàle."

 

Belle read other languages more proficiently  than she spoke them but she understood what Mulan meant.

 

"Yes," Her lip twitched and Mulan gave her an amused look.

 

"The most common cure is the best in this situation."

 

Belle crossed her arms own her chest, "And what is that?"

 

Mulan didn't miss a beat, "A hair from the wolf that bit you."

 

Either the woman was still working on her idioms on she was having a laugh at her expense. She was leaning towards the later. Despite Mulan's serious soldier’s ways, she did have a fabulous sense of humor.

 

"I'm going to the library." She dragged herself away, easing her

 

way through the crowd towards the door. Mulan followed her and if she has laughing she was wise enough to do so silently.

 

"Some willow bark tea would help as well."

 

Belle snorted, "No, we have a much more potent magic at our disposal- Excedrin."

 

* * *

 

Snow, Ms Blanchard, had let them have an extra-long recess, something about a meeting. Henry didn't mind, not one bit. Operation Hydra was his main focus, not school. Who needed to know the states and capitols of a country you didn't actually belong to. It was stupid. Why did they have to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag anyway?  Storybrooke was no more a part of The United States then Toronto was.  Shouldn’t they be pledging fealty to his grandparent’s coat of arms, or something? 

 

He had more important things to do.  So he was at the school library, researching (and returning the DVD he'd borrowed). The Book didn't have anything about Cora in it. Now that he knew about Esmeralda, he had to find out about Cora. He Googled “Fairy Tale+Characters+Cora”. It turned up exactly one article on a blog and it only came up because the author's first  name was Cora too.  The article was about Grimm's Fairy Tales.  Those fairy tales weren't the right ones, though.

 

He searched for Captain Hook and found a lot about the Disney cartoon movie (He'd seen it a million times).  He found the old movie where Pan had been a grown-up (also seen it...his Mo-Regina loved Robin Williams.) but he was sure that wasn't right either.

 

Why had The Book left them out?

 

Everyone was afraid of Cora, like she was worse than the Evil Queen.

 

Speaking of the Evil Queen,Regina, why had she never mentioned Cora?

 

Esmeralda had raised her, but Cora was her real mom. Wasn't that more important?   Why was Esmeralda, Regina's adopted mother, living with her, but not Cora?

 

Well, of course, she was evil and Mo-Regina wanted everyone to think she was good now. So was it a trick? Maybe they were meeting in secret to plan evil things?

 

No one talked about Cora when he was around. It was like they wanted him not to know.  Him! The one who had figured out the stupid curse in the first place. He hated magic and secrets and plots.

 

He would figure this out by himself. Just because he’d lost the stupid science fair didn’t mean he was dumb. 

 

He scribbled and doodled in his notebook on the blank "Cora" page.

 

He'd lost the science fair, because school was stupid. Stupid and useless. He wouldn't need that stuff when he was a real prince in the Enchanted Forest.

 

Right? Right.

 

He was thinking, trying to decide exactly how to go forward. Ava had been right, he should look into other ways of figuring these sorts of things out.  The Book was useful, but it didn’t have everything in it.   He had to be back on the playground at two-thirty to go back to the classroom with everyone else. He had fifteen more minutes to figure out what to do.

 

"Ava said you'd be here."

 

Henry turned around and tried to pretend that she hadn't scared him.

 

"Oh" He tried to play it cool, "Hey Paige.'' He blinked,  “I mean Grace."

 

The blonde girl shrugged and sat down in the chair beside him. "Either is fine," She smoothed out her uniform skirt, "It's all the same to me."

 

She riffled through her purse.  It was a very nice looking one that she had gotten from her super rich dad after the curse had broken.

 

"Why?"

 

She looked up from her purse, "Why what?"

 

Henry folded his arm over his chest, “Why do you go by both names? Your

 

real name is Grace. You real dad named you that."

 

She pulled a stack of envelopes out and started to look through those.

 

“I have memories of both my Daddy and my Mom and Dad. I love them both."

 

She handed him an envelope, "Daddy hated it at first but now he's okay,

 

well sort of. They are working together on my birthday party. I hope you'll come.”

 

Henry looked at the envelope.  He'd been to parties before, but that had been during the curse so it hadn't counted.

 

Before kids were his friends because of the curse. Emma had broken it, though.  Paige was inviting him now, too.

 

“Daddy is paying for everything so it will be as awesome as the ones your Mom used to throw you.  In fact, it will be better.  He’s sort of got it in his head that he has to show her up.  Something about what happened in the Old World. Anyway.”  She tossed her hair over her shoulder, “There's going to be a bounce house, ponies and Mr Dopey is going to DJ for it.  Daddy said we can’t have any  crazy music where there’s cursing, though.” She shook her head, "He wants it to be perfect. “I hope you'll come." She wrinkled her nose, "We used to be friends." She frowned. "We had fun."

 

He shifted in his chair, unsure of what to say. He did like Gra-Paige. she was cool, and funny and very good at Wii Bowling and Mario Cart. She even liked comics too, well if manga counted as real comics.

 

"It wasn't really-real, though. You were cursed." Her brow furrowed, and if his Mom and Emma were anything to go on, that meant she was mad.

 

“So? Most people were. It doesn't mean we were robots or dumb. Just because you broke the curse doesn't mean it never happened.

 

"I" He didn't know what to say to that. If he'd had a minute he might have come up with something. He didn't get a minute.

 

“Grace!''

 

Mr. Dash, Grace's real father was jogging towards them. He ignored Ms. Potts telling him to stop.

 

"Grace!"

 

He wore fancy clothes, a suit like Mr. Gold, but instead of a tie he wore a fancy scarf, like Freddy from Scooby Doo.

 

"Grace, sweetheart, get away from that boy."

 

He grabbed her purse and pulled out her chair, "We're leaving right now."

 

He turned to Henry, "stay away from my daughter."

 

Henry's jaw dropped, “Huh?"

 

Mr. Dash was acting crazy.  Henry was one of the good guys.

 

Grace was also confused by his words, "Why can't I hang with Henry? We're friends."

 

He  ripped the party invitation out of Henry's hand.  "Not anymore. Not with The Queen of Hearts in town.”  He tugged Grace away.

 

"He is a target.  A walking, talking target.   His entire family is doomed. This entire town is at her mercy."

 

He shook his head. His eyes, lined with makeup like his Mom wore sometimes, were wide and darting around.

 

"From who? My Mom?" Henry had never heard her called the Queen of Hearts before, but it did make sense.

 

Grace’s father looked at him.  It was hard to figure out his facial expression. It looked like he was remembering something.  It must not have been nice, because he looked both afraid and surprised.

 

"Regina?”  He said her name like a bad-word, then he shook his head, “No.”  His voice was different, almost kind.  “No. No. Dear Boy, Regina is a regular saint compared to Cora."  He paused, his eyes steady for a second, “When I met her, before either of you were even thought of, she was friend.  A friend, once upon a time.”  His voice sounded sing-songy at the end of the sentence.

 

He tugged at his scarf and Henry could see an ugly red scar that went all the way around his neck. ”The Queen of Hearts turned Wonderland into never-ending nightmare.  She will tear  Storybooke apart."  Now his voice was deep and rumbly, both scared and scary.

 

He tugged Grace again, but she tried to pull away.  Instead of fighting with his daughter, he picked her up and held her on his hip like a baby.

 

"That monster won't touch my Grace. If I were you.'' He tucked the scarf back into place, "I would say goodbye to your mother.  Regina is on the top of The Queen’s hit-list."

 

He turned and walked away with Grace in his arms. When Ms Potts tried to say something, he only held up a hand to silence her.

 

"I am removing my daughter from this school. She might return if The Queen of Hearts is dead.  When she is burnt to ashes and buried.  Mix in salt.  Sanctify it with silver and sage.  Off with her head. Maybe not even then."

 

He was breathing fast, like his Mom when Emma had fallen, "Off

with her head, you know.”

 

Henry watched them leave and was as confused now as he had been before.

 

He had been de-invited from the best party ever because his Mom and her Mom were evil. He did have way more to go on for his search, though.  Cora had been the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland. So now he had something to go on.

 

"Hey" He turned to look at Ms Potts,"Do we have a  copy of Alice in Wonderland?

 

She nodded, “Yes, but I  think that the book is right on your reading level so no movie this time, young man."

 

Busted!

 

She shook her head, "I've got my eye on you from now on."

 

He smiled, and hoped it looked innocent. "Yes Ma 'am."

 

She pushed him out of the library as soon as she'd checked out his books.  He had an illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass to read.  It would answer some questions.  It would help him with Operation Hydra.

 

“Remember Henry"

 

He paused at the door to look back.

 

"Those stories are not our stories, only reflections of them. It’s like looking in a carnival mirror, everything is there, but not exactly right.  It is too all or too short, too fat or skinny.  Sometimes it curves around so much it doesn’t look the same at all.  Even that fairy tale book you're so fond of didn't get everything right. A librarian” She wagged her finger at him, "knows how to tell a biography from a bedtime story."

 

He nodded but wasn't exactly sure what she meant. Of course The Book was right, right?

 

Right.

  
  
  
  
  



	26. Chapter XXV: Storybrooke Girls Gone Wild

Chapter XXV

Storybrooke Girls Gone Wild

 

Her mother and father were both very busy. They were not running a kingdom, but they did have very demanding jobs. They often had meetings

that lasted late into the night.

 

Aurora often spent time with Mulan and Belle at the library researching.  It was nice but she still felt a hole in her heart. She felt at loose ends, unfinished. She didn't know what to do.

 

Belle had retired early, citing a headache.  Mulan had also settled in for the evening.  The internet sounded interesting, but Aurora declined Mulan.  They could explore the internet another day.

 

Instead she had wandered in the park and had bought a few trinkets in the local shops.  Her parents had given her a card with unlimited money somehow connected to it.  It was magic, she assumed. The great and powerful fairy Visa had enchanted it.

 

She had walked along the beach and watched the fishermen haul in their catches.  She had watched the change of shift at the canning factory.  She had even watched  the children and teachers get out of school.  She had nothing to do. At least back home she'd had tutors and duties and arranged  social events.  There had never been a moment to herself, or that was how she remembered it.  Now?  There was nothing but free time.

 

She wandered into Granny's, where all Storybrooke socialization occurred. It was late, after dinner, but she didn't want to go to her parents home, alone.

 

The diner’s business was still brisk, half the tables were still full.

 

She saw Ruby, who was not in her usual garb. She was wearing tight leather breeches that were eye-popping red. Her shirt was silky white over a shimmery black sleeveless undershirt. Her hair looked beautiful and wild. Aurora raised a brow, intrigued.  She had never seen a woman dressed in such a way. She looked like Emma Swan,  but nicer, prettier.

 

"You look very nice, Ruby."

 

The tall waitress grinned, "Why thank you, Princess."

 

"He-ey Aurora, Rubes."  Emma Swan, dressed in a very short and  black dress with no sleeves,shawl or petticoat in sight, walked in. Aurora's jaw dropped. She had chemises that were longer.

 

"Emma, is that leather?"

 

The other woman, whose gold hair fell down her back in big beautiful curls, nodded. Her eyes looked dark and smoky and her lips were dark red.  Emma slid her hands down the dress. “Yup.  I dragged it out of the closet for tonight.”

 

Ruby smiled, wide and toothy, and bounced on her heels, "Nice!" They seemed excited, lighthearted and dressed up.

 

“Are you ladies celebrating something?"

 

Emma threw her well-muscled arm over Ruby's shoulder, "This lady took a job as a Deputy today. We are hitting the Rabbit Hole tonight."

 

Aurora tilted her head, and wished that she understood half of what went on in Storybrooke.  "You're celebrating at a bunny hutch?"  She’d had pet bunnies as a child, but they hadn’t been something to celebrate. 

 

Both women laughed "It's a bar, Princess, a tavern." 

 

Oh, of course it was.  That made more sense.  Though, at least she would have known what to do with bunnies.  She’d never been to a tavern.

 

“Would you like to come along, Aurora? The more the merrier."  Both Emma and Ruby were smiling at her, like friends.  She probably shouldn't, Mother and Father would not approve but-

 

“You wouldn't mind if I came along?"

 

They looked at her then at each other, then back at her. They looked her up and down, examining everything from her hair to her shoes.

 

"On one condition."

 

A condition? Aurora wavered a bit , “What sort of condition?''

 

The other women chuckled, "You thinking what I'm thinking, Wolf-Girl?"

 

"Oh yeah.”  Ruby grabbed one of her hands, “Make-Over."

 

Emma grabbed her other hand, “Stat.”

 

What was wrong with the way she looked?!  Her hair was plaited and the white dress her mother had bought for her looked very nice.

 

They pulled her up the stairs chattering together and took her to Ruby’s bed chamber.  She had no idea what was about to happen, but it was something, which was far better than nothing.

 

* * *

When they hit the Rabbit Hole the townies had to pick their collective jaw off of the floor.  Emma had to admit, they made a damn fine picture. They had a brunette with mile long legs.  She was a blonde bombshell(if she didn't say so herself).  Now they had  their own autumn haired diamond in the rough party girl, Aurora.

 

While they had all loosened up with pre-bar drinks, she and Ruby had given Aurora a crash-course in modern fashion.  They had taken the prissy princess and turned her into a regular club hopper.

 

The electric blue halter dress that was scandalously short on Ruby fit Aurora pretty well. They had slicked her hair into sleek waves.  After a quick debate they had glammed the girl up.  All it took was some bronzer, eye-liner and shadow and some slick, shiny lip gloss.  The only thing they couldn’t fix were the shoes.  Aurora wore a six, Ruby wore a ten and Emma’s shoes were all elsewhere. So the plain jane white kitten heels would have to do.  Still all things considered, no one would be looking at her feet. 

 

"Hey Joe!" Ruby flagged over the bartender. Emma was already a little buzzed.  She was ready to revel in her first night out since her life had flipped upside-down.  Yeah, it was definitely Miller Time among many other drinks.

 

Aurora, of course, was looking around at everything, like she’d never seen it before. Of course a princess didn't party with the peasants.  Also there was the whole modern world stuff.   Like strobe lights, electric guitars and lots and lots of great booze.

 

"Relax, Aurora. It will be fun."

 

She found a table and Ruby brought over a tray of neon-colored shots in tubes.

 

Lately Emma had been on edge.  It was the stress: adventuring, motherhood, daughter-ness, sheriffing, and kinda-dating.  She had a lot on her plate.  She needed a moment to let go, to relax, to not be everything to everyone.  She wanted to be Just Emma again, if only for a night.  If she wanted her sort-of-girlfriend there with her, she could keep it to herself. One night. 

 

She grabbed a lime-green tube and Ruby took a fizzing pink one for herself. Aurora hesitated but grabbed a blue tube.

 

"Bottoms up, Princesses."

 

Ruby clinked their tubes together then threw back the concoction. Emma, more than ready for some fun, followed suit. Aurora made a hilarious face but drank it down like a champ.

 

"Yo D!" Rudy waved her arm at Dopey.  The dwarf who was half-hidden by screens and speakers in the corner of the room.  It was his makeshift DJ booth squeezed beside the tiny dance floor.  "Play something danceable!"

 

Aurora looked excited but then her head cocked to an almost ninety-degree angle when the loud bass-line started pumping. She must have been expecting a flute and harp.  Ruby hip-checked her, “Dance with me!”  Emma reached out and pulled Aurora along, whether the princess was ready or not.

 

* * *

 

 

She and Emma dragged Aurora (who was not as snooty as Ruby had suspected) to the dance floor. It would be perfect if only Belle had come along. Not Mulan, though. Ruby had a feeling that the woman had never partied a night in her entire super-serious life. Besides she would have blown a gasket if she knew that they were getting her precious princess drunk. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

 

Aurora was stiff, still and looked unsure what to do. Ruby leaned down and  smiled a little because Aurora, like Belle, was a shorty.  Belle was missing out and Ruby missed her.

 

“Relax, 'Rory Girl. Let the beat move you."  She put her hands on Rory’s (so much cooler than Aurora) hips.  She moved them to match her own awesome moves."It’s about having fun."

 

Emma handed them each another round of tube-shots and added "Lots of fun."

 

The shot was something sweet (cherries?) and burnt all the way down.  Delicious. A new song, as jamming as the last, started.

 

"C’mon Emms!"

 

They started dancing, Emma’s front to Rory's back.  They had their arms in the air.  Emma was a good dancer: all swinging blonde hair, cut biceps and sex appeal. Ruby kept her hands on Rory’s hips (and okay one time she reached around and smacked Emma’s ass)

 

Between them Rory found her rhythm and was dancing like she did it every night. Every eye in the bar was on them.  If Ruby closed her eyes it was all too easy to imagine they were somewhere else.  They could be bumping and grinding their way through the VIP Lounge at one of the big East Coast clubs.  The kind where CEO and Senator’s kids blew their parent’s money.  Emma nodded at her.  Great minds think alike and if people were watching, they were going to give them a show.  They didn't have to buy another drink all night.

 

At some point, between jello shots and teaching Rory the finer points of pool, Ruby lost her over shirt. She was only in her black cami, which showed off her guns and abs, when the body shots started. A Lady Gaga remix was pumping out of the speakers and Emma insisted on teaching Rory the right way to take the shot.

 

A hot tongue on her stomach, a lime and she was sharing very personal space with her new boss.  The entire bar erupted in cheers and cat-calls.

 

Ruby followed up that with another dose of tequila.  Because, why not.   She turned to Rory, "Ready for a walk on the wild side, Your Highness?" Her wolf metabolism was starting to fail her because her words were starting to slur.  She shouldn’t have done so many shots at home, or at the bar.  Bad Ruby.  Big Bad Ruby, the wolf. 

 

Rory’s smile was wide but lopsided. She tried to wink but ended up awkwardly blinking. “Yeah!" She was screaming and the crowd(a lot of guys) cheered her on. She was a little clumsy but very excited and managed to finish her shot.

 

She was cute, but Ruby would prefer a different woman's tongue on her but would Belle-

 

"Hey" Emma husked in her ear, "don't tell R’gina 'bout that." She turned to look at Emma, who had a Sam Adams in one hand and a shot of something (more tequila?) in the other.  Emma was swaying on her feet a little (a lot)  "Keep it on the D-L, Rubes. R-Gina, I kissed Geeena."

 

Emma was way drunker than Ruby had realized.  Getting the boss drunk would not look good on her resume.

 

Emma tossed her arms over her neck in a sloppy hug.  “I wanted to tell her to come along but she wouldn't get it. She's trying to be good, you know."

 

She sighed, "We kissed." She repeated herself then sucked down half of her beer.  “On the lips.”

 

The bell for last-call rang before Ruby's intoxicated brain could formulate an answer to that.

 

“She's”  Emma held up a hand signalling for one last round of shots, “totally into me."

 

Joe came over with three last tequila shots and looked them all over,  “Keys.”  He held out a meaty palm and looked them over.

 

Ruby waved him off, “We walked.  Can’t have the 5-0 drinkin’ and drivin’.”

 

Emma nodded and shot finger guns at him, “Another episode of Law and Order Special Curses Unit in the book.” 

 

Joe didn’t seem impressed but handed over the shots anyway.

 

"Guys!" Rory snagged the bottle of beer from Emma's hand and finished it.  If Emma hadn’t been busy throwing back a shot, she would have protested. Do we have time for one more- ooh!”  She plucked the shot off of Joe’s tray and tossed it back.  Well, she tried. Half of it went in her mouth and the other half went on her borrowed dress.  “Damn!”  She stumbled and fell into  Ruby. She wrapped her arm around Rory’s waist to keep her from falling flat on her face.

 

"Oooh" Emma giggled again, "She’s plastered."

 

Ruby took care of her own shot and Emma fished her credit card out of her cleavage, “Settle us up, Good Sir.”  She handed the card over with dramatic flair of her wrist, “Give yourself a good-ass tip.”

 

He walked away shaking his bald head. Emma ran a hand through her now tangled blonde hair, "Oh.  I am blitzed.  I am the worst cop ever."

 

Ruby, while keeping Rory more or less vertical with one arm, used her other to give Emma a one-armed hug.  “You're great, Ems. Even your new gal-pal Ma-Damn Mayor thinks so.”  She snorted, “She even made you wear a uniform.” Ruby waggled her eyebrows, “kinky.”

 

Emma turned scarlet red and tried to laugh-it-off.  Her wild fake laughter made Joe give them a weird look when he brought back Emma’s credit card and receipt.  She had, maybe, spent ten bucks, as most of their drinks had been  happily handed to them by slobbering guys.  She scrawled a signature that Ruby figured as closer to hieroglyphics then her name.  “Thanks, Joe.  We’re out!”  He looked relieved.

 

They helped Rory out of the bar.  Her first night out had been a success, but she would never remember it.   Tequila was the ultimate forgetting potion. They stepped into the chilly two-am air and Ruby breathed it in.  It helped clear her head for a moment.  Rory breathed it in too and for about thirty seconds everything was great.

 

"Oh God!" Rory lurched forward and Ruby carried her to the alley so  she could puke like a proper drunk.  Emma held her hair back and Ruby held her entire body up as a lot of alcohol and little else made a reappearance.

 

"Ew" Emma held back her own gagging, "We are in so much shit. Mulan is gonna kill us. She is gonna kill us with her kick-ass sword.  I loved that movie."

 

Ruby rubbed circles on Aurora's back as she kept dry-heaving.  “Not to mention her royal parents."

 

Emma groaned, "Guess they'd prefer we’d taken her to a tea party to drink Crown Royale.”  She laughed at her own terrible joke, "Get it” She chuckled and pointed at her head, “Crown."

 

Ruby helped the finally empty Rory stand up strait.  “Yup.”  She let the p pop off her lips, "Now take your comedy act on down the road home. Hope yo' mama and daddy didn't wait up."

 

Emma's eyes widened, “Shit!”  She had forgotten about her own royal parents.  Which was both a little sad and a little funny. "Good luck with that, Ems. I'm taking Rory to the B&B tonight.  You, my fine-assed boss, are on your own."

 

Then she hoisted Rory up over her shoulder and started to walk. "See you at work" She gave a cheeky salute.

 

“Bet you breakfast she's not going to her parents place tonight."

 

Rory’s only answer was a pathetic groan.  "I hear that, babes.  I hear that.”

 


	27. Chapter XXVI:  Insomnia

Chapter XXVI

Insomnia

 

It was late, night would soon surrender to morning. Still, she was unable to sleep. Esmeralda was old friends with the demon Insomnia.  Anyone who had seen the things she had, done the things she’d done, didn't deserve the deep sleep of the innocent.  Regina worried about her. She had pacified her worrisome ward with the promise that she would rest.  It took that and two cups of tea to get her Nightingale to go to bed.

 

When Regina had climbed the stairs,  Esmeralda couldn't help but smile. She had looked exactly like the five year old girl who hated bedtime she had been once upon a time.  As she had told Henry so long ago, Regina was not a lost cause. There were glimpses of goodness in her.

 

She could see so much of her father in her. Esmeralda wished Regina saw that too. She focused too much on her similarities to Cora.  Esmeralda scowled at the idea.  Regina was not anything like Cora, not in her heart.  Regina was on her own journey.  Though there were similarities, everyone’s paths were their own.  Regina was, for the first time in many years, making positive progress.  She was rediscovering herself, remembering how to smile. Regina had a beautiful smile, it was Henry's smile reborn.  She had missed that smile and anyone who tried to make it disappear again would deal with her.  She didn't care if it was Cora, The Dark One or the Spirits themselves, no one would hurt her Nightingale again.

 

Esmeralda wandered the manor, making sure everything was secure. Doors and windows had not changed as much as other things.  She had to admit that the elect-trick lights were far better than candles. Everything smelled better.  Eugenia had advised her that this realm was her preferred one.

 

“At my age I like warm houses and flush toilets."

 

Esmeralda agreed. The cleanliness and technology of this realm was ages ahead of most other places she had visited.  Henry would have loved it. If she closed her eyes she would swear to The Spirits she could hear his soft chuckles.  The lights and the houses, the food and especially the moving pictures would amaze him.  Tellie-vision, Little Henry had called it.  His explanation had been incomprehensible to her.  Henry would love it, though.  He would love Little Henry too.  They shared the same vivid imagination and the same powerful hope burned in them.

 

A clatter knocked her out of her reminiscing. Doors hadn't changed much and neither had locks.  She recognized the sounds of someone tampering with a lock.

 

Esmeralda turned on her bare heel and set out for the kitchen and the patio doors there. It was the weakest point in the manor.  Someone was there and they were trying to pick the lock. Esmeralda pulled a knife out of the  block.  It was long, sharp and well-weighted.   It wasn’t a dagger, but it would do.  She took a breath, steadied herself, flicked the lock and wrenched the glass door open.  The sudden movement made the would-be-intruder fall.  They fell backwards onto the small stone patio.

 

“Ow!”

 

Esmeralda conjured a ball of light and almost laughed aloud at what she saw.  Emma Swan, dressed in a short leather tunic or a very small dress.  She was barefoot, with very high heeled shoes abandoned on the grass beside her.

 

“He-ey”  Emma squinted up at her through a tangled mop of blonde curls, “I-uh-forgot about you.”

 

Her words slurred and held an odd accent that was not usually present.

 

Emma pushed herself to her feet.  It was an awkward movement that almost didn’t succeed.   She braced herself  on the patio table.  Her face was bright red.  Whether that was from drink, embarrassment, or from exertion, Esmeralda wasn’t sure.

 

“Uh”  Emma  had a lopsided grin on her face, “I came to see R’gina.”  She got on her tip-toes to peek over Esmeralda’s shoulder, “is she here? I mean of course she is, right?”

 

Esmeralda fought to control her face. It was amusing and a little cute.  “You're drunk." She reminded the woman.  Emma held her hands up even as she wavered on her feet.  She held her palms an inch apart  “A lil bit.”

 

As much as  Emma's drunken attempt to break in annoyed her, she would be a hypocrite to scold her.

 

"I'm early for breakfast, but I gotta talk to her. She told me I could eat breakfast.  Well at Granny’s, but right now she’s here and I-”

 

Her slurred speech and swaying was too much.  Esmeralda bit back a chuckle and stepped aside to let her in.

 

Emma’s smile was so wide it would hurt if she could feel her face.  “I haven’t been caught sneaking in since I was, like, a kid.”  She left her shoes where she’d dropped them and  wandered into the kitchen.  “Busted by her Mom.  Laaame.”

 

Esmeralda smiled behind her raised hand.  Drunken Emma Swan was an adolescent masquerading as an adult. She followed the woman up the stairs she had so recently tumbled down.  Emma leaned on the banister and muttered to herself as she went.

 

It wasn’t exactly the picture of romance.  Relationships, though, were not built on romance, life was not a bedtime tale.  Relationships were full of arguments and compromises.  They were drunk nights and long boring stretches of  thankless domesticity.

 

She would give her left arm if it would give her one more night like this.  One more time of walking Henry to bed after he got too carried away with his cider.

 

She lead Emma to Regina's room and sighed.  Regina had fallen asleep reading, still propped in bed.  She was a light sleeper when she wasn’t fighting nightmares. As soon as she sensed a presence, her eyes fluttered open.  She immediately came to full awareness and focused on them.

 

“Nan?”  She took off the eyeglasses she’d fallen asleep in (so like her father) and her jaw dropped open.  “Emma?”

 

She looked to her bedside clock then back at them, “What's wrong?  Is Hen-”

 

“Regina!”  Emma bounced into the room and cut Regina off mid-word.

 

Regina’s wide with shock eyes told Esmeralda that she had made the right decision.

 

“This belongs to you.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was late and the Weathersby home was dark and quiet, save for one room.  Leah  didn't sleep much, and hadn’t for years.  She had once thought that was an after-effect of the curse, but Aurora and Snow had no such issues that she knew of.  They didn’t know how lucky they were.  She didn’t let her insomnia hold her back, though.  She worked through it.  She had spent several nights alone in her office.  Her office was upstairs and worlds away from Stephen’s study.  It was her own realm, feminine without going over the line to frilly or fussy.   It was comfortable, more so than her utilitarian office at the school.   Marco had hand-carved her office furniture out of cherry wood and the walls were a soft lilac.  Thick candles filled the room with flickering light and the faint scent of vanilla.  That touch of the old world was a sharp contrast to the sleek technology that sat on the desk.  This was her sanctuary, to work and relax, without interuption.  Stephen didn't dare disturb her here. Not that they were often in any room of their house at the same time.

 

She was reviewing lesson plans, a tedious chore.  She had to complete a review for every single teacher by the end of the month if she wanted to stay on schedule.  It was one of the less pleasant parts of her job.  She scrolled through each multi-page document on her iPad.  Going from paper to digital had been a blessing. She didn't have to shuffled through hundreds of papers anymore.    Since Storybrooke existed as it's own city state, she had the final word on their curriculum.  Leah insisted that their students stayed on par with their peers. She would prefer they did better than the rest of the nation.  So she kept the school in line with the current standards, even if No Child Left Behind was a pain in her rear.  

 

She furrowed her brows at a glaring error in the lesson plan and started to type up her critique.  She didn’t sugarcoat her words or soften the blow, she never had as a queen and she would not now as a principal.   The age old debate, love or fear, was simple to her.  The teachers and staff of the school didn't have to love her, but they would fear her wrath.

 

There was also the matter of the dance, or as Snow White had re-branded it, The Ball.

 

If there was one thing Leah hated, it was Balls.  Snow had been a sheltered, spoiled child and the real purpose of Balls had escaped her. It was not about dancing and watered down punch.  Balls were pure politics with satin bows and glitter plastered on. They were glamorous pantomimes for the rich to show off their money and the powerful to make deals.  A neo-education of popular culture had finally given her a word to  apply to her feelings about Balls.  Hustle.  Balls were her hustle.  She knew how to manipulate the entire room to dance to her tune. She didn’t particularly like it, but one didn’t get to pick their talents.             

 

She would hate attending, but it would at least be amusing to watch. Snow was going to make a mess of things on all fronts.  She didn’t particularly hate Snow White.  She was obnoxious and annoying chirpy, but otherwise agreeable.  She was her father’s child, obsessed with her own righteousness and the adoration of those around her.  She was of the air-headed bunch that wanted love.

 

It was  a pity that Eva had died while Snow had been so young. She may have been able to guide her daughter a little better. She had been able to turn love to her advantage time and time again.  Eva hadn’t taken any precautions, though, even though she had made powerful enemies.  Well, enemy.

 

Cora may have been born a commoner but she had raised herself up through magic and machinations.  She had no doubt that Cora had been behind Eva’s sudden death.  She’d had Regina right there waiting in the wings to marry her mourning husband.  It had all been too neat and tidy.

 

Cora.  Considering what she had done to Aurora, she would love to see her burnt at the stake.  Leah was no fool, though.  Cora was too powerful and far too unpredictable to for a single person, or even a mob, to attack.  Besides, Cora was currently too useful to dispatch.  She would keep all the so-called heroes, and her daughter, busy.  
  
Leah frowned and tugged at her necklace as she considered her next moves. The small gold and amethyst charm was familiar in her fingers.  It was one of the few things that had followed her over from the Old World and for that she was grateful.  It was her prized possession.  It was the one small piece of happiness (other than her daughter) that she allowed herself.  One small happy memory that she refused to give up.   One day she would tell Aurora about it.   She sighed and tugged the charm around her neck then pressed it to her lips.  One day, she promised herself.  One day she would.

 

Not tonight, though.  Aurora was spending the night with Mulan and Belle.  A girl’s night, she’d called it.  Leah had spent so much time separated from her daughter for more time than they’d been together.  It shouldn't bother her, but it did.   Her house felt empty in a way that it never had before.  She hated it.  She hated that she was afraid that it would be this way forever.  Twenty-eight years of insufferable silence had finally come to an end and she didn't want to go back.  She needed Aurora to fill the silence, her laughter and her words, her spirit.  She needed her daughter.  


Leah might have sat for hours lost in her own thoughts, but for the chiming of her phone.  It was late, too late for social or even professional calls.  The number was not saved in her contacts, but she answered it anyway.

 

She listened to the caller and her heart dropped into her stomach.  “You’re sure?  You’re sure that it’s my daughter?”  It was hard to hear him over the cacophony of noisy voices and music, but his words hit her like a shotgun blast.  Her Aurora in a bar?  Drinking and dancing?  She couldn’t even imagine it.  She could not imagine her baby girl doing such things.

 

“She’s with Belle French and Mulan?”

 

Her free hand curled into a fist and slammed onto her desk.  Aurora had lied to her.  She was out at the Rabbit Hole with Ruby Lucas and Emma Swan.  She couldn’t believe that her daughter-no.  She would not think about it.

 

She almost choked.  “Pictures?”  She could feel her blood pressure jump up, it made her dizzy and she forced herself to take a few breaths.  “I want those pictures.  All of them, including the SIM card.”  She nodded to herself,and realized that if they didn't want money, she would kill or die for those pictures. “Yes.”  She grit her teeth, “I’ll have some cash on hand.  Bring it over to my house.”  She ended to the call and gripped her phone so tight her knuckles turned white.  The phone beeped again and picture text messages started to arrive. The first one was fuzzy, but she could see her daughter sandwiched between Swan and Lucas.  The next was of her daughter and-she threw the phone across the room.  It cracked against one of the bookshelves and she let it stay there.  There were pictures, blackmail-worthy ones.  Luckily the man who had taken them was a small time chump who had small demands. She would give him a few hundred dollars and he would go away. It could be worse.

 

She stood and smoothed her hair and skirt before walking across the room to retrieve her phone.  The screen had shattered but she could still see the latest picture on it.  It was not of her own daughter, but of Swan and Lucas dirty dancing.

 

Yes, it could be worse, much worse.  Leah saw the situation as it was, a double-edged sword.  Still, a sword was  a sword and she could turn it on others.

 

The phone was still functional, though she would have to order a new one immediately, and she could get a call out.  She was not surprised when it was immediately picked up.

 

“Sidney?  Yes, I have something for the front page.”

 

* * *

 

She was a light sleeper.  Henry had made sure of that in his first five years of life.  Prior to that Snow White and her father had often invaded her bed chamber.  They'd had vastly different reasons, of course.  So she was no stranger to rude awakenings.  She definitely had not expected this, though.  Emma was drunk and giddy with it.  She bounced onto her bed, grinning from ear to ear, "Hey!"

 

Out of all the things that might have woken her this was, well, not as terrible as it could be. Esmeralda had abandoned her to deal with Emma by herself.  She was almost positive that Nan had been chuckling as she went.

 

“Miss Swan." The woman was, or had been, dressed to impress in a little leather black dress. It was a far cry from her usual choice of clothing and Regina wished she had seen her before the bar.

 

"Yes, Ma-damn Mayor." Emma snorted and laughed at her own slurred play on words.

 

Regina wanted to be mad or offended or at least show extreme disapproval.  Emma was so damn cute, though. She was a chipper, barefoot drunk.  “What are you doing here, Miss Swan?"

 

Emma threw her hands up dramatically,  "I had to come tell you what happened!"

 

Regina raised a brow, "Did things get a little out of hands with Miss Lucas?"

 

Emma immediately went scarlet red.  "No!  Yes!  Sort of!  I mean.  It wasn’t bad-bad. I bad. We did some-”She mumbled something that sounded like shots. "But I would have liked it to be you!  You weren’t there though, and Rory had no idea how and I had to show her!”

 

Emma’s rambling almost made sense.  It reminded her of Henry when he had first learned to talk, lots of sound and little substance. She had to make a concentrated effort not to laugh.  She worked on keeping her regal face impassive.  “And who is Rory?”

 

Emma tossed her hair over her shoulder in a move that when sober should have been sexy. Now it was silly and a little uncoordinated.  Regina refused to call her cute again, even in her mind.  Emma mock-bowed,  "Princess Aurora.  Rubes and I showed her how we party in this century."

Oh Hell.  Regina wanted to bury her head under the pillow and pretend that she hadn’t heard that.   Stephen and Leah would be furious. Leah had coddled the girl before Mal had cursed her, she imagined it was ten times worse now. Not to mention that Mulan had all but declared herself Aurora's personal champion.  She was one of the most accomplished warriors in any realm and she would have her sights set on Ruby and Emma.  It would not be pretty.

 

“Are you mad?''  Emma looked at her with a pout that put their son to shame.  Her lip even quivered.  She should be mad. Her son's mother, not to mention her town's Sheriff had acted like a fool.  "Please don't be mad. You weren't there for me to dance with so I came to see you.  I couldn’t wait till breakfast.  It was too long to wait to see your beautiful face."

 

Damn it.  Perhaps when Emma was sober she would be able to deliver a scathing lecture.  She couldn't do it now, it would be like kicking a puppy when they were  down.  Emma tilted her head and continued to pout.

 

“I didn't wanna go to the Loft. Stupid Snow and David." Emma huffed, "Can I stay with you?"

 

No. It was absolutely out of the question. No, Not a chance, negative, no.

 

“Of course."

 

It was official, the Evil Queen was going soft. The town was inching towards civil war, her mother was up to only the Spirits knew what, and she had let herself go soft.  Soft for Emma Swan.  Pathetic.

 

"Go" She couldn't help but smile, "take a shower. You smell like a backwoods distillery.”

 

"But" Emma tossed her hair again in an attempt to be sexy, "I don't have anything to wear." She winked,well blinked, "I’ll have to sleep na-ked.”  She sing-songed the last word.

 

Regina rolled her eyes,"I’m sure I  can find something for you.''  She turned her covers down and got up.  She went to her closet, there had to be something Emma could borrow.  

"Ma-damn Mayor"  Emma watched her as she walked.  No, not watched, it was borderline ogling.

 

Regina shook her head,"Behave Miss Swan."  Though since Sober Emma couldn't behave, there was little hope for her drunken self.  In the time it took her to retrieve a set of pajamas and return Emma had sprawled across the bed and passed out.  She had small snuffling snores and an odd look of peace on her make-up smeared face.

 

“At least you're on the left side.”  

 

She tucked Emma in as best she could. The woman was dead, floppy weight.  She smiled down at her and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

 

"Good night, Miss Swan."

  
  



	28. Chapter XXVII:  The Morning After

Chapter XXVII  
The Morning After

 

She wasn’t dead. That was Emma’s first cohesive thought. You had to be alive to be so miserably hung over. Every inch of her body,including her hair, teeth and fingernails,hurt. She was pretty sure she was about to throw up. If she threw up in bed, she could probably roll over and away from it so she could die with a little bit of dignity. She was never drinking again. Not ever. It was a promise she had made to herself time and time again. One day that promise would stick, maybe.

The second thing that pinged through her mind, was that she was not in her usual bed. That set off alarm bells in her already aching head. It also meant she should definitely not throw up in it. Emma laid still and took stock. She was dressed,which was good. She cracked open one gritty eye. The room was large, dim (Thank God)and unfamiliar. She could see enough to know that she wasn’t at Mary Margaret’s loft or The Inn, but that was about it.

She lifted the blankets and could see last night’s clothes, panties and all. Well that put her in the best case scenario. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up like this. It was the first time in a while, though. She’d been playing Sheriff and Savior and Daughter and Mom for what felt like a lifetime. It was all a little suffocating. She’d needed to blow off some steam and apparently she had. She just wished she freaking remembered it.

Emma could hear a shower running in the connected bathroom. If she wanted to get out without any awkwardness, now would be the time. She turned over and sat up. Her head spun and bile rose in her throat. God she felt like she’d licked the floor of a crappy bar, sawdust and all. She turned her head to look for her phone, but stopped short. There was a glass of water on the bedside table. There were two tylenol and a small package of tic-tacs too.

She downed the water and the pills then she filled her whole mouth with tic-tacs. She felt almost human.

The bathroom door opened and time slowed down to a damn near halt. Emma jerked around and opened her mouth to speak but everything she might have said, everything she had half-assed planned, went out the window.

“How are you feeling, Miss Swan?” Regina Mills stood in the doorway,an elegant silhouette against the bathroom lights. Emma stared. Maybe she was still unconscious and having alcohol and Regina fueled dreams.

“I uh”

Regina came closer, her footsteps light and fluid. She walked like a dancer or a predator. Emma blinked and tried to keep her mouth from dropping open. Regina was only wearing a robe. It was blue silk, fell midway to her knees, and was only barely tied. It was a tease,a taunt, it was torture.

Regina rubbed a towel over her hair, ruffling the sleek, dark perfection. It was already starting to crimp and coil into natural curls.

“Uh I don’t know how I got here.” Emma could feel her face turning scarlet yet at the same time, she was smiling. She was smiling so wide that her face hurt.

Regina came closer. She was morning fresh, barefoot, and smiling. She wasn’t wearing her stilettos, a three piece power suit, or model-worthy makeup. She was more beautiful now, like this, than Emma had ever seen her.

“I don’t know how I got here.” Emma repeated, “But it is the best idea Drunk Me has ever had.”

“Drunk You?” Regina rolled her eyes, “Esmeralda caught Drunk You trying to break in through the patio doors. She marched you up here” She ran her fingers through her hair which only made it messier and took a few steps closer. “Because Drunk You just had to tell me about your liquor fueled escapades with Miss Lucas and Princess Aurora.” She didn’t sound pissed, but she didn’t sound impressed either.

Emma winced, half-headache and half-embarrassment,that did sound like something Drunk Her would do. Drunk Emma was sort of a dumbass.

“Then” Regina cocked a brow, “you proceeded to solicit me poorly before passing out across my bed.”

Drunk Emma was a horny dumbass.

“I-um-sorry. Thanks for not banishing me to the couch, I guess.” She pushed her hands through her tangled mess of hair. “or like a ditch somewhere. Not that I would blame ya.” Stupid Drunk and Horny Her had screwed everything up. Typical.

Regina came closer, and grabbed her hand. Emma’s fingers were caught in a bad tangle and the sudden jerk tore at it. “Ow!”

Regina smirked a little, “You’re only making it worse. You’re lucky that Drunk You was too cute to banish.”

Regina had started to finger-comb through her hair. Her touch was soft and gentle, like she was petting a kitten. Emma let out a small moan and let her heavy head drop into Regina’s cool-to-the-touch hands. Her headache was starting to melt away.

“Cute, huh?” Emma dared to speak after a moment. “I don’t think I’ve been called cute since I was eight.”

 

“Yes” She could hear Regina’s smile in her voice. “Drunk You went to great lengths to pay me compliments and express your” She chuckled a little under her breath, “admiration of me.”

Oh man, she wasn’t sure what she had done, but Regina didn’t seem too upset. It couldn’t have been too bad.

“I should be upset with you.” Regina’s fingers were still combing through her hair. “but I am trying to turn over a new leaf. A less vindictive one, so I will let you off the hook-this time on one condition.”

Honestly? She was putty in Regina’s hands. She could ask for anything and Emma would move Heaven, Hell and whatever damn fairytale lands were in between to give it to her.

Regina tugged her hair gently so she turned her face up. They were less than an inch apart.

“Anything.” It was a risky thing to say to a woman who had been the Evil Queen. Emma would do it though. “Just say the word.”

Regina leaned closer, Emma could feel lips brushing against her cheek.

“Take” She pushed Emma back down onto the bed, “a shower.”

Regina retreated to her closet, laughing. Emma laid there, still aching like a son of a bitch, but smiling. Evil not so much, but Regina was definitely the Queen of Snark.

Emma got to her feet and was pleased that the room didn’t spin. She shuffled to the bathroom and made an effort not to think about a half naked Regina. The bathroom almost made her forget about the woman, almost.

“This is it. I died last night and went to Heaven.”

Regina’s private bathroom was nothing short of magical. The room belonged to some five star luxury hotel or a mega-rich celebrity in Beverly Hills. There was a huge sunken tub in the middle of the room and a walk-in-shower the size of Emma’s first apartment. Everything was marble, glass and shining stainless steel. It was huge, modern and overwhelming. Emma looked around and could see little bits and pieces of Regina spread across the room: A glass bowl with potpourri here and a pair of abandoned earrings there. A small family of rubber ducks was hidden among half a dozen scented candles of on the edge of the bathtub around the faucets. Emma picked one up. It was small, green, and it squeaked. They had to have been Henry’s. It was all too easy to imagine Henry splashing around in sudsy bubble baths in the ridiculously large tub. It was even easier to imagine Regina treating herself to a bubble bath surrounded by flickering candles and a big glass of wine.

“Get it together, Swan.” She looked around the rest of the huge room. Regina had set out a two big fluffy white towels on what might be a warming rack. There was an ipod docked to a speaker and Emma grinned. Madam Mayor probably sang in the shower.

Speaking of the shower, she needed one. Emma could smell herself and was surprised Regina had let her in the house, let alone her bed. A shiver went down Emma’s spine at that thought. She’d spent the night in Regina Mills’ bed. Oh man, that shower was going to be ice cold. Emma groaned. Stupid hangover. Stupid Drunk Emma. She wriggled and fought her way out of last night’s dress and got into the shower.

“Holy shit. I’m gonna marry this woman for the bathroom alone.” The shower was amazing, like a dream. Emma had gone without showers before. She had done quick splash baths in sinks and used way too many truck stop and gym showers. She’d used prison showers while pregnant, which had been the worst. This, on the other hand, was awesome. She marveled at it all. There was gentle shower falling from a ceiling mounted sprayer and jets that shot out from the wall. The water temperature was controlled by a damn dial with a digital readout. Regina had it set for one hundred and ten degrees, which was damn near scalding. Emma lowered it down to one-hundred. She was so lost in the luxury, that she forgot all about needing a cold shower. Until, of course, she reached for the shampoo.

The scent hit her and Emma was lost. She knew it, had breathed it in every chance she got. Regina’s scent had been haunting her since their first awkward meeting. Emma had just all but snuggled with her and smelled it on her dark clean hair. The scent was intoxicating and sent her strait to fantasy land.

She’d had fantasies about Regina before, but these were different. These fantasies were about what it would have been like if she’d woken up a little bit earlier. About how well two people would fit in the shower. About touching and kissing warm and wet skin. About how sexy Regina would look pinned up against the marble wall. About how her legs would wrap right around Emma’s waist and-

Emma let out a long and pathetic groan. She inched the water temperature down a bit. Regina was doing her a favor and she was being a total pervert. Regina, who had been showering right where she was only a few minutes before her. Regina who decided to barely tie her robe. Regina who had kissed her.

Oh damn it.

Emma turned the knob down further. She didn’t look at the digital read-out, but she finished her shower with water that might have been strait from the dead of winter ocean. To help with her hangover. That was her story and she was sticking to it. Okay, maybe it was because her son’s other mother turned her into a hormonal teenager who had just figured out she was bisexual all over again.

Emma finished up her shower, and despite the almost hypothermia, she really did feel better. She wrapped her hair and body up in sinfully soft towels and sighed when she remembered that she only had her party dress with her to wear. It would be like the walk of shame, only without the preceding fun. She didn’t know where her heels were and she had no pocket for her panties. Stupid Drunk Her.

A curl of purple smoke caught Emma’s attention and when she turned to the door she saw neatly pressed clothes were waiting for her on a hanger that she was sure hadn’t been there before.

“Really, Regina?”

There was even a practical black bra and matching boy shorts and thick boot socks sitting on the bathroom counter.

“I bet you even got the sizes right.”

She pulled the pants, fitted khaki cargo pants, and grinned when they fit perfectly. Speaking of professional, she pulled the black polo on and blinked at herself in the mirror. The Storybrooke Sheriff’s Office Shield was embroidered on one side of her chest and Sheriff E Swan was embroidered on the other. There was a heavy leather belt fit with a place for her badge,cuffs, holster, flashlight and several other things went perfectly with everything. It was official, Madam Mayor had a uniform fetish.

Emma pulled her hair back with one of the ties she borrowed from the collection of them that Regina had in a neat little bundle in one of her drawers. They were so odd and out of place. Had Regina’s hair ever been that long in Storybrooke?

She looked herself over in the mirror and she wasn’t as fancy as she had been the day before, but she still looked like, well, a small town sheriff. Honestly? It wasn’t a bad look. This,all of it, was something she could get used to.

She left the bathroom and was disappointed to see the bedroom was empty. The bed had been made and the curtains pushed back. Emma smiled. The Mayor’s bedroom window had a killer view of the town. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was going to be a beautiful day. Hangover aside, Emma was pretty sure that everything was perfect.

She went downstairs, and followed her nose to the kitchen. Regina was dressed, heels and all, in a killer sleeveless black dress. Her hair and makeup were perfect and if she took off her apron, she would be ready for any runway in the world. Regina moved gracefully in her kitchen, flipping bacon and slicing up homemade bread (who did that?!) for toast.

“Um Hey.” Because Emma Swan was a master of communication.

Regina turned and smiled at her, “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. I’m good-great. Your shower, I mean wow.” Oh yeah, she was a bumbling baby bisexual all over again. “And the clothes-I mean-thanks!” She could feel her cheeks flushing red. She was twenty-eight, not sixteen. She should be able to pull her shit together for five minutes.

Regina put her spatula aside, “Are you okay, Emma?”

She sighed, “I think I drank myself stupid.”

Regina’s lips twitched into a smirk, “How can you tell the difference?”

“Hey!” Emma chuckled, “I thought I was cute.” She stepped closer to the other woman. “You said so yourself.”

Regina’s smirk stretched into a little smile. “Did I?”

Emma weighed the risks and decided that she was feeling brave. She came closer, until her front brushed against Regina’s back. Emma wrapped her arms around Regina’s waist and just breathed it all in. She could smell the shampoo, conditioner and body wash that they’d both used, and she could smell breakfast. More than that, she could smell something else. Something that didn’t come from a soap, cream or spray. It was that little something that was just Regina.

“Yeah. You did.”

Regina was relaxed in her arms: warm, soft and inviting. This was not the woman that the rest of Storybrooke knew. This was a secret Regina, the one who hid behind magic, masks and mayorness. This Regina was special, reserved for only a select few people, only available a few moments at a time. She was Henry’s Mom, Esmeralda’s Daughter, and maybe (just maybe), Emma’s Girlfriend.

“You’re taking liberties, Miss Swan.” She wasn’t pushing her away, though.

“Can I take some more?” She whispered in Regina’s ear and then pressed a kiss to the skin just below it. Instead of answering, Regina tilted her head to give her more access. Emma skimmed her lips along the offered expanse of skin. It was amazing, intimate, and was a whole new world for them both. One of Regina’s hands covered her own. When Emma let her teeth lightly scrape across her neck, Regina let out a little moan. Emma felt that moan in every part of her body.

Regina turned and tilted her head and caught Emma’s lips with her own in a kiss. It was only their second kiss, but just like the first, it was amazing. Kissing had never been so intense. Not with men, not with women, kissing Regina was a completely different experience. It was exhilarating and sexy, but it also felt warm and safe. Emma felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Regina’s hand rose and her fingers tangled into Emma’s wet ponytail, holding her in place. Emma’s hands wandered up and another little moan emboldened her. She gently cupped Regina’s clothed breasts. Regina’s gasp broke momentarily broke their kiss.

“Too much?”

Emma’s words were a mumble against Regina’s cheek.

“No, I’m-”

“Burning the food.”

Emma jerked away from Regina. Caught! She turned to see Esmeralda standing by the open patio doors.

“Would you like me to take over breakfast,Nightingale?”

Regina took the bacon out of the pan, “No. She’s running late so I’m just making her a few sandwiches to take to work.”

Emma perked up at that, “You are?” She straightened her perfectly fine collar, “You don’t have to do that.”

Regina smiled,”are you turning down BLTs with my special sriracha aioli and honey oat bread?”

Every single word made Emma’s mouth water. “No, Ma’am.” Regina stepped away from her and went to the refrigerator. “I’ll put the extra bacon in a bag so you can share with Ruby or David.”

Emma chuckled, “Share? Not likely. Speaking of, do they get these kickass uniforms too?”

Regina assembled two thick sandwiches and wrapped them in wax paper. “Yes. They’ll be in your office in some boxes.” She dropped the sandwiches in a small white paper bag for her.

“You’re not going to write my name on it?” She fake pouted at Regina. “Also can you wiggle your nose and conjure up my boots or maybe I can borrow something that won’t kill my feet?”

Regina grabbed a fruit cup and a granola bar and added it to the bag. “I used to put crayons in the bag for Henry so he could color on it after lunch. Would you like some too?”

Emma sneaked a peek over at Esmeralda. She was sitting at the island, sipping her tea and enjoying every second of their awkward morning flirtations.

“And” Regina shoved the bag into her hands. “Your boots are by the door and if you leave now, you’ll only be a little late.”

Great, Sexy Morning Regina had been body-snatched and Madam Mayor was back. Damn.

“Let me walk you to the door.” Regina curled her finger around Emma’s belt loop and tugged her along.

Okay maybe Sexy Morning Regina wasn’t gone quite yet.

Emma threw a grin over her shoulder as Regina tugged her away, “See you later, Esmeralda.”

Regina pulled her down the hall and into the foyer. There, sitting by the door were her boots, polished and “Did you put new laces in my boots?”

Regina untied her apron and draped it over her arm. “Those laces were dirty and one of them was knotted together and I-”

“You are amazing.” Then she kissed her.

Regina immediately wrapped her arms around her neck and kissed her back and Regina knew how to kiss. Emma had kissed her fair share of people, but Regina was something else. Though she had sworn off love about eleven years and eight months ago,Emma could see herself falling in love with Regina. They broke apart and Regina clung to her for a moment, like she didn’t want to let go.

“I suppose you should go, Sheriff Swan.”

Emma grinned, “You gotta let me go first.” She slid her hands around Regina’s waist and rested them on the small of her back.

Regina grinned, “I think you can be a little later.” She pulled Emma back in for another kiss and all thoughts of sandwiches,boots and being Sheriff floated away.

When they broke apart Regina’s head dropped a little and Emma let her forehead rest against Regina’s. “I don’t really want to go. Can’t I just not Sheriff today?”

Regina chuckled. “Unfortunately not. Someone has to make sure Pongo doesn’t chase Mrs. Jacob’s cats.”

Emma snickered, “That is too true.”

Regina pushed her away gently, “Put your boots on. I have to get the newspaper before the sprinklers come on.”

It was so domestic, like the opening credits of a cheesy sitcom. Regina opened the door and bent down to get the paper. She was humming. Emma pulled on her boots. She hopped a little and tugged them on one at a time. She went out the door, intent on stealing one more kiss.

Regina had the newspaper pinched at the corners and held it away from her. Like it was dirty or contaminated. Then Emma saw why and the happy domestic bubble they’d been playing in all morning popped. Emma felt bile rise in her throat and tears burn in her eyes.

“Regina, I can-”

How was she supposed to explain it,though? A picture was worth a thousand words and there were three. She was drinking, dancing, and licking Ruby Lucas. She had a vague memory of it, but-

“There is no need to explain, Miss Swan. Now go or you will be very late.” Regina’s face was composed and impassive, her voice clipped and cool. It was impossible to tell how she really felt.

“Regina, please-”

The other woman handed her the paper, “Have a good day, Miss Swan.” Then she turned on her impossibly high heel, walked inside and shut the door behind her calmly. The click of the door lock engaging might as well have been a shotgun blast.

Emma punched the door,”Shit!” Her fist hurt and her heart hurt and Drunk Her was the biggest idiot in the world.


	29. Chapter XXIII:  Growing Pains

Growing Pains

  
  


The morning had not started well. The day had been a disaster and it wasn’t even eight.  Snow had jerked him out of a dream with her screams. He’d grabbed his sword before he’d remembered where and when he was.  Snow had been furious, livid and a lot of other SAT words that the curse had taught him.

 

Things had been wild lately.  First Emma had spent a second night away from home. Second was the paper. He hated the newspaper.  It was like having a headache delivered to their door everyday.  He should cancel their subscription.  Today had been the worst yet.  His daughter, his precious baby, looked like an advertisement for Girls Gone Wild.

 

His first reaction was to march down to the paper’s office to give Sidney Glass a piece of his mind and his sword.  It hadn’t been Snow, who had started looking for her bow, that had calmed him down.  No it had been Regina’s words from before. Someone, probably George, was trying to rile them up. He wanted to ruin their reputations and their lives too. George loved to cause trouble.

 

The last thing they needed was more trouble. They had  enough on their plates already. So he had calmed Snow down, which had not been easy, and swallowed his own anger.  It hadn’t gone away though.  The anger was still there, burning a hole in his gut.  
  


Emma wasn't a child or a teenager, she was an adult.  She made her own decisions, good or bad.   It was hard, but he had to remember that.  It wasn’t like they could ground her or send her to bed without supper.  She wasn’t eight, she was twenty-eight.  He also had to remember that it wasn’t only him and Snow anymore.  They had a family, a grandson, to think about.  Hell they had a whole town to think about.

 

Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about Emma and what had happened.  Surely, as her father, he should say something?  Right? He tried to think of what his own mother would say, about Emma and everything else.  He had no idea.  David leaned back against the outside wall of the Sheriff's Office to think. He folded his arms over his chest and watched Storybrooke wake up. After a few minutes of thought, he decided that his mother would laugh.  She would laugh and say that Emma was a chip off of the ol' block.  They did share the same coloring and the same signature reckless bravery.  Even when he had been an amnesiac, he’d felt a kinship with Emma.  It wasn’t like he’d never been to a tavern and showed off for a pretty girl. That could be it too.

 

He hadn’t been born and bred a royal.  It wasn’t that he didn’t have morals and standards, he did.  It was that he didn’t put so much weight on appearances, pomp and circumstance. Snow had been born a princess and when she looked at Emma, she thought of her own royal raising.  He was a farm boy.  He was a Mama's Boy too.  She had raised him almost on her own.  He had no illusions about men being somehow stronger or smarter than women.

 

A princess?  No, Emma was a woman and she didn’t need a tiara to get things done.  Stephen’s words still aggravated him.  Emma wasn’t a fragile little lady, she was their elected Sheriff.  
  
He was not the smartest guy in any world. His time as "James" had taught him a few royal things. The Curse had dropped a lot of knowledge into his head.  He now had a high school diploma, an odd assortment of pop-culture, and sports knowledge.  He also got an obsession with the American Civil War and a fake wife.   One thing hadn't changed.  Politics were never going to be his strong suit.

 

In fact, he hated politics.  He had been George's pawn, Regina's target and Abigail's tool. Playing games he would never understand was exhausting.  It was sickening and he wanted it all over and done.  Hadn't they earned Happily Ever After yet?

  
The newspaper-and all the mud-slinging articles in it, was one hell of a political game. Sheep knew when they were being herded. He didn't like being a sheep. He was not going to let George, Regina or anyone else pin him up. He refused to do another thing he would spend a lifetime regretting.  

 

Ruby, bleary eyed and nervous, came dragging in a little hungover and a lot embarrassed at ten till eight. She had three large cups of coffee and a fake smile.  She looked everywhere but at his eyes and was twitching even though the full moon was two weeks away.  
  
David wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. Red was Emma's Godmother, meant  to look out for her. She was also Emma's friend and deserved a little fun in her life. He decided not to say anything. That was always the safest choice.  Ruby had been in the paper too.  Over the past few days the press had attacked her.  They had called her everything short of a harlot and monster in the article.  She didn’t need him piling on her too.  It wasn’t fair to use her as a target for his annoyance.

 

She handed him the coffee and he tipped the cup to her in thanks. They stood in awkward silence until Emma arrived five minutes late. He did a double- take when he saw her. She looked wildly different than the party girl in the pictures. Emma looked like she’d stepped out of a tv show about cops.

 

Ruby offered her the third cup of coffee, but Emma already had full hands. She had the station keys in one hand and the morning paper and a  bag in the other.  Emma juggled everything while she unlocked the door.  She walked in and let them follow.  “I’m guessing.”  She turned to face them in the middle of the room, “that you guys have seen it too.”  She sighed when both he and Ruby nodded.   


“Okay.”  She put everything on the nearby desk.  “Okay.”  Her face hardened and her jaw tightened.  She looked exactly like Snow when she set her mind to something.

  
"Here’s the thing.  We are at our office.  This is our place of business and this-”  She grabbed the news paper again.  “crap doesn't belong here.”  She threw it into the trash can. “We have no comment.  We leave that stuff out there.  In here we are professional.”  She threw up her hands, “Sort of.  We have a lot to talk about.”

 

She wasn’t a princess, that was for sure.  She was a Sheriff and was putting her own stamp on the office. He’d voted for her during the curse and she still had his vote today.

 

“So let's talk about protecting and serving and all that shi-stuff.”  She went to her office and bumped the door open with her hip.  “Come on.”

 

They were sidestepping the hard, emotional, and uncomfortable conversation for the moment. That made the day better for sure.  Besides, he was pretty sure she had bacon in the paper bag she’d brought with her.

 

"Nice threads, Boss.”  Ruby grinned and handed her coffee.  “Can I get some of that bacon?”

 

“No to the bacon”  Emma popped off, “But you two have uniforms in those boxes.”  She pointed to several boxes along the wall. “Which are hopefully labelled."  She paused, “And I don’t even want to know how the sizes are exactly right.”

 

They’d filled in their sizes on one of the many papers they’d each filled out the day before, but that didn’t seem important.

 

She motioned for them both to sit and grabbed a clipboard loaded with papers.    
  
"So I spent most of yesterday figuring out schedules and things, and I’d like to talk about some ideas I have.”

 

There was a lot to go over. It felt like learning  
to be a prince all over again. Only this time he didn't   
have to lie about his name.  Emma had drawn up a revolving schedule of duties and on-call hours.   The labeled boxes had uniforms to go along with their new badges.  Emma expected them to wear the uniforms while on duty.  She expected them to  follow the schedule and read the town charter.  She also had several other manuals and books for them to read.  She expected a lot out of them. She seemed to expect a lot of herself.   
  
She wasn't exactly what he or Snow had imagined their baby would grow up to be, but he was proud of her.

  


* * *

 

It was a calm, pretty morning, or it had been for about five minutes.  Belle sighed and dilly-dallied as she unlocked the library doors.  She loved reading and learning but the morning paper had soured her love of the written word yet again.

 

Mulan had been livid.  She had been ready to turn Ruby into a rug and mount Emma’s head on the wall. Not that she’d said that.  She hadn’t said anything. Belle  was not a novice when it came to bad tempers. She had lived with Rumple’s dramatic rages, and The Evil Queen’s fireballs.  Mulan’s seething and silent rage was something completely different. The quiet was actually more intimidating.

 

Belle sighed.  Going over to Granny’s Inn had not been her best plan.

 

She couldn’t get the image out of her head.  Ruby, wrapped in a skimpy red towel, and Aurora covered in a sheet.  The same sheet she’d snuggled under the other day.  It wasn’t what it looked like, they had said.  Well, they had screamed that.   While the door had been wide open and everyone could hear. Aurora’s scream was shrieky and her face had turned scarlet.  Ruby had stared at the floor, the wall, the ceiling, and looked at everything but Belle. Wash she embarrassed of what she’d done, or that Belle had seen it?

 

Why couldn’t anything be easy? She wanted a few days without drama, kidnappings or curses, was that  too much to ask?

 

She looked at the cell phone that Rumple had given her.  She had three missed calls from her father,  and two from Rumple.  She also had a grand total of four emails about the ball that the school was throwing.  How a simple elementary school dance had turned into the event of the decade was beyond her.

 

She’d always hated balls.  She’d rather stay in and read a good book. Belle had tried her hardest to leave early or feign sickness to not go at all.  She’d had to go, though, to represent her family if nothing else. Her father had insisted upon it. She’d hoped to escape such silliness in Storybrooke.

 

A group text message, filled with women she hadn’t spoken to since she’d joined Rumple, pinged yet again.  The women, royals and nobles from the old world, were talking about dress designs.  Belle closed the text and wished she knew how to remove herself from the group.

 

She sighed and tried to plan an escape.  She could go see Rumple.  Surely he wasn’t going to the Ball.  They could have a nice evening together to catch up and chat over a nice pot of tea.  She needed to ask him to help her translate an Elvish text anyway.  Magical languages were difficult. This one in particular was in an older dialect and she had no clue where to start.

 

Belle slid the key into the door lock.  She tried to mentally work up the enthusiasm to turn it when something caught her eye.  Well, it was someone.  Regina Mills was walking down the street. People weren’t screaming and throwing stones, but they weren’t friendly to her either.  The exception was Archie and his dog, they (especially the dog) seemed happy to see her.

 

Belle drew in a deep breath.  She and Regina did not have a pretty past.  The Evil Queen had locked her up in a tower and then a madhouse.  She was the last person in the entire world Belle wanted to ask for help.  So of course she was the only person who could help them.

 

Nothing could be easy.

 

“Regina!”  She held up her arm and waved to get the other woman’s attention.  When the former queen turned to look at her, she expected anger or disdain.  Instead there was only a little curiosity.  Belle forced herself to smile. She had a nagging feeling that she was inviting trouble to her door.  No, she was inviting the Queen of Trouble in for tea.  Maybe she belonged in the madhouse after all.

 

Regina walked towards her, striding across the sidewalk in four inch heels like she owned it.  Well, actually, since she’d created the town, she might.  Belle admired Regina’s unshakable confidence but she would never admit that.

 

“Miss French.”

 

Belle unlocked the library door and pasted on her best smile.

 

“Good Morning, I was hoping I could have a minute of your time.”

 

Regina raised a dark brow, “I suppose.”

 

Belle opened and held the door open for Regina, “Do you know Elvish by any chance?”  She hit the wall switch and the library buzzed to life and light.

 

Regina turned around, taking in all the changes and improvements.

 

“I do, actually.”  She looked around, and Belle felt a little self conscious.  Regina was still technically her boss. Belle felt the muscles around her neck and spine unknot when she saw that the former(?) mayor was smiling. “You’ve done a good job in here, Miss French.  I should have never let it get so run down.”

 

Belle wasn’t sure if that last part was for her or if Regina was talking to herself.  She decided to roll with it.  “Well next time don’t keep your librarian locked up for twenty eight years.”  She was poking a tiger with a short stick and knew it was risky.

 

Regina didn’t rise to the bait though.  She was calm.  “I will take that under advisement.”  She almost sounded friendly.  “You asked about Elvish?”

 

Belle blinked.  She  hadn’t thought things would get this far.  Regina had never been so helpful before.

 

“Yes.”  She walked around the long counter to her office to retrieve the old tome she’d been working on for days.

 

“I’m helping Mulan and Aurora with some research.  I’m afraid that my tutors never covered archaic magical languages.”  She smiled, “though I did ask several times.”

 

She sat the book on the counter between them and flipped to her book mark.  “Here.”

 

She turned the leatherbound book around so Regina could see.  regina leaned close and squinted her eyes a bit.  Was it concentration or did the other woman need reading glasses?  She spent a moment going over the passage, her brow furrowed.  Then she looked up so sharply that Belle jerked back in surprise.

 

“Why are you researching wraiths, Miss French?”  Her voice lowered an octave, it sounded more like Evil Queen than Mayor now.  Belle refused to shiver or shake, but it was frightening.  Regina straitened up to her full height. “Isn’t one wraith”  She rubbed her palm. “Enough to last this town a lifetime?”

 

Belle shifted from foot to foot.  This was the tricky part.  If she couldn’t convince Regina to help them, they would never succeed.  She hadn’t expected to be so nervous.  It wasn’t like Regina could lock her up again.  Right?  Right.

 

“It’s for Aurora.  A wraith killed her True Love, Prince Phillip.  The wraith that you banished so that you could live."

 

Regina looked away, “I’d heard as much.”

 

Belle wouldn’t have believed it, if she hadn’t seen it herself.  There had been a flash of something that had looked exactly like guilt go across The Evil Queen’s face.

 

“Well, she and Mulan heard that there was a way to get him back.”

 

Regina didn’t even blink, “They heard lies.  Resurrection is a religion, not reality.  That is a basic law of magic.”  She sounded absolutely sure of that.

 

“Well your mother said-”

 

Regina went a little pale and her shoulders drew tight.  “My Mother is the Queen of Hearts and a master manipulator.  She’d give your boyfriend”  Regina’s voice was cold and accusatory, she spit out the word like it was blasphemy. “-a run for his money.”  She wrapped her arms around her middle.  Discomfort radiated off of her.  “If I were Aurora, I would pick a pretty place in the cemetery and let Phillip rest in peace.”

 

It was now or never.  Belle didn’t like being mean, but she had to.

 

“Like you did with your True Love? I heard what Doctor Whale did to him.  What you had to do.”

 

Regina stepped back, startled and stunned. “You don’t know anything about-”

 

“No”  she cut Regina off before the woman flew into a rage. Belle knew that once the Queen was angry, the only place you ended up was a tower cell and that was if you were lucky.  “I don’t.  I do know that Aurora is a lot younger than you, a lot sweeter and she deserves a chance at love and happiness.  We can give her that-but we need your help.”  Help that, Belle suspected, Regina had never received.

 

It was impossible to know what was going through Regina’s mind.  In fact, Belle doubted that she even thought the same way other people did.  The Evil Queen had been just a hair away from madness on her best days.

 

“You’re the most powerful sorceress of all time”  If guilt hadn’t worked, maybe flattery would.  “And you are uniquely connected to the wraith.  If you could help us summon it, I guarantee we can keep you safe.” Guarantee was a bit of a strong word.

 

This was her last chance, Belle could feel it.  Regina was about to say no, and if she did, they had no chance.

 

“You could use all your magic and power for good you know. You don’t have to keep being The Evil Queen. I know you’re not irredeemable.  You killed so many people, scores of innocents, but-”  It was something that she’d been trying to figure out lately.   Something that had never quite made sense, “-but you kept me alive.  You kept me alive for years even though my dead body would have served you better.  Killing me would have made Rumple hurt.  Made him feel all the pain you felt.  You didn’t, though.  My continued existence proves that you’re not as evil as everyone says.  I see it.  Make everyone else” Henry “see it too.”

 

Regina wasn’t looking at her anymore, she was staring into space.  No, Belle realized, she was staring at the gorgeous glass mural on the wall.  The mural that slid away to reveal the elevator door.  The elevator that descended down into the mines.  The mines that had held a giant dragon, Maleficent.

 

Had, past tense.  Emma had slain the dragon before the curse broke.  Regina stared at the mural for a moment.  Her face was unreadable.  “One condition.”

 

Belle hesitated.  Deals were tricky and Regina’s condition could be anything.  “What?”  She tried to sound calm and collected, but she was making a deal with the Evil Queen and she was shaking on the inside.

 

“I would like to use the elevator.”

 

The dragon was gone, but something in the way Regina stared at the door said that it-she was not forgotten.  There was no telling what other surprises could be waiting down there.  For all Belle knew, Regina could be tricking her.  She could have some all-powerful and unstoppable weapon of magical destruction.  Certain doom could be just beneath their feet.

 

“Help me translate this and I’ll unlock the elevator.”  She should stop making dangerous deals with dark magic users. Regina didn’t actually need her help or permission to use the elevator.  She had magic and if she wanted to use it, Belle would not be able to stop her.

 

Regina nodded and started to rifle through her purse.  She pulled out a slender case.  Belle froze in place but relaxed when Regina pulled a black-rimmed pair of reading glasses out of it.  “Do you have somewhere we can work?”

 

Belle couldn’t believe it.  She was pretty sure she was about to go into shock.  “Yes, of course.  I’ve got everything set up in the back.”  Her plan might actually work!  
  


* * *

 

She paced her room, back and forth.  Aurora, princess and almost-adventurer, hated enclosed spaces.  Her father had locked her door from the outside.  As if she were a child or a prisoner.  She was neither.  She was a grown woman with a mind of her own.  Only neither her parents or Mulan seemed to agree with her.  She scowled at her own reflection in the oversized mirror mounted on the closet door. She wasn’t sure who she was angrier with: her parents, Mulan or herself.  So many things had happened so fast.  She was still reeling from it all.

 

She’d been hideously ill when she woke up.  A hangover, Ruby had called it.  The night before was a jumbled mess of memories.  It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, all twisted images and bright colors.  It had been fun, but the headache and sour stomach (had she vomited?) was not worth it.

 

She’d woken up in Ruby Lucas’s bed in an oversized shirt that was not her own. Ruby had slept on the floor on a pile of pillows and blankets.

 

It had been a little embarrassing, but Ruby was a perfect gentlewoman.  She had even offered her use of her shower and yet another change of clothes from her closet.

 

“Chill here while I duck into the shower, then while you take a shower I can  go downstairs and get you some breakfast."  It was a nice little plan, but it had not come to pass.

 

Mulan had all but barged into Ruby’s room after only two knocks with her sword in hand.  She’d seen Mulan mad before, but this had been something different.  Mulan had looked at her like she was a stranger, like she was someone she’d never seen before.

 

“Get dressed.”  Her voice had been flat and cold.  “I will take you home.”

 

She’d been sick from drink and too little sleep. All she’d wanted was to lean against Mulan for strength and comfort.  She wanted  to smell the warm mix of leather, incense and lotus blossoms.  Aurora had wanted Mulan to make all the sickness and embarrassment go away.

 

Only Mulan hadn’t done anything like that.  She’d been brusque and distant, more like a palace guard then her friend.  She wore modern clothes, light blue pants and a long sleeved white shirt, and her dark hair had been in a simple braid. She looked like anyone else in Storybrooke. She wasn’t anyone else, though, she was  Aurora’s friend and compatriot, her Mulan.

 

Mulan had delivered her to her parent’s house, stiff and formal. The old Captain of the Guard couldn’t have been stiffer.  Her father had opened the door after the first rap of Mulan’s knuckles. That was when the morning had went from bad to worse.

 

It all happened in slow motion, each second was a crystal clear image stuck in her mind.  She’d opened her mouth to speak-to apologize- but had never made a sound.  Her father, the kindest man she’d ever known. struck Mulan. He hit her with the back of his hand.  Hard.  Hard enough that her face twisted to the side from the impact.  

 

Aurora lost her breath and the urge to vomit came back with a vengeance.  She couldn’t believe-couldn’t understand-what she had seen.  Her father didn’t hit people, she’d never seen him raise his hand in anger, not in her entire life.  More than that, though, she couldn’t believe how still Mulan was.  She had done nothing.  In fact, Aurora was sure that she could have blocked the blow, but hadn’t.  She’d let it happen.

 

“You!”  Stephen raged, “You were supposed to protect my daughter.  You said it was your sworn duty!” His voice was so loud and angry. Aurora had never heard him scream.  It was foolish, but she wanted to duck behind Mulan.  Her own father was frightening her.  Her heart started to race.  For a brief and terrifying moment, she was afraid that Cora had taken her father’s place.

 

He struck Mulan again.  His ring, a heavy signet ring with a black stone the size of a quail’s egg, cut Mulan’s cheek. The blood was a bright and hideous red against the skin of her sculpted cheek.  Aurora reached out to wipe the blood away, to pull Mulan behind her. To protect her, for once.

 

“Where were you when my daughter was being corrupted by whores and monsters?”

 

Whores?  Monsters?  Ruby and Emma were her friends.  So was Mulan.

 

Her mother slid past her father, through the door and onto the front stoop.  “Aurora, are you-”

 

For the first time in her entire life, Aurora paid her mother no mind.  “Father!”  She stepped in front of Mulan, between him and her.  She would not let him hit Mulan again.  Only she stopped short.  

 

Her mother grabbed her arm. “Aurora, don’t-”

 

She tried to tug herself free, but couldn't break her mother’s iron grip on her wrist. She looked from her mother, to her father.  They had to see reason, she had to explain to them what had happened.

 

“Father stop!  Mulan didn’t do this.  I did. I decided to go out-to lie to you and mother.  Mulan-”

 

He reached out to hit Mulan again and the warrior did not flinch or move away or lift a hand to defend herself.  Her shoulders were sagging and her eyes were downcast.

 

“is a woman with delusions of manhood. She is as much of an abomination as that damn wolf.”

 

Aurora’s heart tore in her chest.  No.  No she was not.  Mulan was kind and brave and true and-

 

“No!”  She pulled out of her Mother’s grip.  She could feel her nails ripping at her skin. Aurora grabbed her father’s hand before it could hit Mulan’s face again. “Don’t you dare say that about her.  She’s-”

 

Then her father had turned to her and she saw a stranger.  His eyes were dark and hard with a fire blazing in them.  His lips peeled back in a snarl.  His whole arm was trembling, and Aurora was truly frightened. She was frightened of what he would do next.  Of whom he would hit next.

 

Mulan finally spoke. “If you strike her”  Her voice was low and gruff but as hard as steel.  It was the voice of a soldier ready for battle. I will remove the hand you do it with, Your Majesty.”  Mulan raised her face to look him in the eyes.  “I say that on my honor.  On my family’s honor.”

 

The words struck Aurora, harder then a physical blow.  Mulan meant every word she said.  More than that, she was willing to give up everything, to throw away her life, to protect her from any harm.  Even if that harm came in the form of her own father.

 

Mulan stood proud and firm, her entire body tense and ready to strike.  She was not afraid of anyone: not Cora and not even a king.

 

“Stephen”

 

Her mother reached out to calm him but he stepped away and whirled on her,  “Enough, woman!”

 

Her mother shrank back, and stepped close to Aurora’s side, in front of her.  Her mother wouldn’t allow him to hit her either.

 

“A woman”  He turned his attention back to Mulan. "doesn’t have honor.”  His voice was sharp and venomous, a poisoned blade.  It was loud, it boomed like an explosion in Aurora’s ears.  It was not the voice that had told her stories of knights and princesses, of good fairies and wicked dragons.

 

“Neither”  Mulan didn’t back down either.  “does a man who would hit his child-”  Her eyes darted to them, “Or terrorize his wife.”

 

They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make a  move.

 

“Leave.”  Stephen ground the word out through clenched teeth.  “and never darken our door again.”

 

He turned his head to look at Aurora.  His face was scorched red with rage.  The cords of his neck popped up.  “You are not to associate-not to see or talk to this-this woman again.  Do you understand?”

 

She froze, inside and out, she would have preferred he had beaten her. Tears burnt in her eyes, her heart lurched in her chest.”

 

“Do you”  He was right in front of her, “I said do you understand?”

 

All she could do was nod.  Her voice was stuck in her throat.  That was why she was silent, but what was her mother’s excuse?  Why hadn’t she spoke up and defended Mulan or stopped or calmed her father?

 

She had never seen her parents like this. Where was the jolly man who had doted on her?  where was the mother who had sang her to sleep?  What had happened to them?  What had happened to her?

 

A dress, a grand pink ball gown was hanging in her room.  There was to be a Ball.  Once Upon a Time she would have loved a ball.  Now?  Why bother?  It wasn’t as if she could dance with Phillip or-

 

She closed her eyes and could see it.  Mulan, complete in her armor and cape, holding out her hand for a dance. The image was crystal clear in her mind.   Mulan leading her around a ballroom.  Her hands  would be steady and warm.  Her eyes would be full of humor and only for her.  Mulan's small smile, her hearty laugh, her scent.  Aurora could see, hear, smell, and even taste it all.  She wanted to feel it too.

 

Without Mulan she felt somehow broken, incomplete.

 

She fell across her bed, dejected and still ill. She turned to the window and looked out of her pretty prison.  Mulan stood at the edge of the lawn and was staring up at her.  She leapt off the bed and scrambled to the window.

 

“Mulan.”

 

She fought with the window latch.  Aurora had to talk to her, to say something, to plead with her not to go.  She pressed her hands against the window glass.

 

The other woman had blood and a smile on her face.  She raised her hand, in greeting or farewell, then she turned and walked away, leaving Aurora alone.  More alone now then when she had been when she’d lain in cursed sleep.

 

What was she supposed to do now?

  



	30. Chapter XXIX:  Mother

Chapter XXIX (29)

 

“Mother”

  


“Go.”  Esmeralda had shooed her out of the house after she’d picked at but not eaten her lunch.  “You need fresh air. You need to clear your head.”

 

She hadn’t been wrong about that.  Regina’s mind had been full and buzzing since she’d all but shoved Emma out of the door. When she’d opened her eyes that she was warm and comfortable, peaceful. Emma had her wrapped up in her strong arms. Tousled blonde hair had tangled with her own and fallen over her face.  For a second Regina’s world had a golden filter. It had been sweet, beautiful in a way that she couldn’t describe. She hadn’t wanted to get up, to leave the warm nest of their-her bed.

 

So she’d made herself get up.  She had to put distance between herself and Emma.  Which had worked for about fifteen minutes. Emma had still been there, on her bed.  She’d been a little pitiful, and a lot cute. How could she resist? Emma was-she was light and laughter and comfort.  Emma made her feel. She had spent so many years numb and cold inside but the minute Emma Swan had strutted into her world, she’d felt a spark.  It was like Emma filled an emptiness inside. Maleficent had said that the curse would take a toll on her. That it would leave a void inside of her, one that she would never be able to fill.

 

Her dear old friend had been half right.  There had been a void in her heart, but it had been there a long, long time. Since Daniel.  The idea that anyone could fill that void in her heart was terrifying. That, and not the newspaper, had been the real reason she’d closed the door on Emma.  She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

 

Esmeralda had wanted to go to the woods to look for herbs and meditate.  Regina had wanted to scream no, to drag her feet, or at least put up a protest.  She hadn’t though, because Esmeralda was right. She wasn’t a baby anymore, she couldn’t hide behind her Nan’s skirts.  She couldn't stay in the manor. She had to go out, interact and show Storybrooke that she was still alive and flourishing.

 

Besides, she needed to get some groceries.

 

So she’d left, but instead of grocery shopping, she’d found herself at the library.  She'd spent her afternoon translating centuries old elvish texts. With Belle French of all people. Regina actually enjoyed research and ancient texts.  They had been a sort of hobby for her for many years. Hobby, obsession, escape from reality. She was certain that this was a collection of poetry and lore. There were a few very specific passages that dealt with summoning a wraith, though. It had taken hours, and Regina wasn’t sure about a few of the words.  Maleficent would have known. She had been a master linguist. She’d been the one to teach Regina Elvish as well as a few other things. She missed the dragon woman.

 

Belle, enthusiastic as she was altruistic, was excited about her ideas.  She showed her the research and information she and Mulan had gathered. Regina had to give credit where credit was due, the Bookworm had done a good job.  If she had the determination and the stomach for it, the woman could be a powerful sorceress in her own right. That was not a surprise, Rumplestiltskin had no taste for weak willed women.

 

With everything laid out in front of her, Regina could see that it would work.  On paper everything was perfect. In reality it was a treacherous undertaking. Wraiths were strong and incorporeal.  A basic binding spell, or even a complex binding circle, would not hold it in place. She remembered that all too well.  The wraith was intense, indomitable, and unstoppable. It was terrifying. The circle of silver, salt and sage to protect them, though, was a cunning loophole. One that she would have never thought herself.  It was different magic, light magic, and was defencive in nature. She’d never particularly cared for either of those brands of magic. She’d never seen them as useful or powerful enough to learn. What a deluded fool she’d been.

 

Regina thought about it for hours and Belle was onto something with her little loophole.  They could push it further. Threes would strengthen the protection. Regina knew enough magical theory to know that.  Three circles. Three torches. Three women. The strongest connection to the creature would be in city hall, in the jail cell and the council chambers.  The trick would be how to get there, perform the ritual and leave. She had to disappear before the good citizens of Storybrooke found out. Everyone would assume that she was cooking up another Dark Curse.

 

Belle wasn’t exactly a subterfuge expert, but she was intelligent and fast on the uptake.  She also didn’t pay attention to gossip. They weren’t best buddies, but they made good colleagues.  It was all very cordial, efficient and oddly friendly. Between the two of them they had translated the text and formulated a plan. Forget the library, she needed at least five more Belle Frenches in City Hall.  Not that she would ever say that out loud.

 

Regina carried her two bags of groceries home. She had a lot on her mind:  Henry, Emma, Belle’s plan, her own journey. She had no job, but she felt busier than ever.  She shook her head. That didn’t even make sense.

 

She fished her keys out of her jacket pocket and balanced the bags on her arms and hip.  It was delightfully mundane. She let herself in and made her way to the kitchen. It was habit and she caught up in her own thoughts.  Then everything ground to a screeching halt.

 

Roses.  There were red roses in her foyer.  She never had red roses in her home. She set the bags on the floor.  Her fingers were trembling too much to keep holding them. The color was a jarring scarlet red.  It was like fresh blood splattered on her creme walls. The smell was cloying, metallic and foul.  It made every inch of her skin break out into goosebumps and cold sweat slide down her back. There was magic here, her mother’s magic.

 

Regina didn’t have, couldn’t even if she wanted, to get any closer to them.  She knew they had long and sharp thorns. She knew they were garden roses,not a weak hot-house imitation.  These were Wonderland roses.

 

Fear came first.  It was cold, like a chunk of ice in her stomach.  Then fury rushed through her system. It was hot and bubbling in her blood.  She clenched her fists and could feel her nails cutting into her palms. She should have known this was coming.   

 

Regina took a deep breath. She could not allow herself to be weak.  Not in front of her mother.

 

She took off her jacket and hung it in the coat closet.  She smoothed her hair in the mirror. She did not need to search the house or call out, she knew where her mother was. She knew how Cora’s mind games worked.  She knew but she still let herself get caught up in her mother’s machinations. She had read countless books and had visited websites and forums. She had taught herself about abuse and recovery.  She’d had a million conversations with her mother over the last twenty eight years. She was a modern adult, a mother to her own child. She could deal with her mother.

 

* * *

 

Cora had watched her daughter all day.  Regina lead a small and frivolous life and that was unacceptable.  She had made sacrifices, navigated deals and had plans. She had guided, educated and groomed Regina for greatness.  She had handed her a crown on a golden platter. She had raised a Queen, not some failed bureaucrat. She had not raised a weakling who clung to their nursemaid and a problematic female suitor.

 

No.  Regina needed to remember where she was from and who she was destined to be. Regina had a nasty habit of of running away. Cora would not let her run away from her destiny anymore.

 

She had made herself so small.  She had let her ambitions shrink.  She had let herself slip from royalty to a miller’s granddaughter. Even her home was disappointing. The walls were bland beige and the art on the walls were pedestrian and shoddy.  Regina’s home was bleak and unimpressive. It was like the life she had designed for herself in the last twenty-eight years.

 

Cora twisted her fingers and the flowers in the foyer turned from white to blood red roses, her favorite. She wandered into Regina’s study. It wasn’t all beige, which was a nice change, but neither was it regal.  It reminded her of her dearly departed husband’s study. It was all dark wood shelves and rows of books filled with fantasy and daydreams. The art was equally offensive: woodland creatures, countryside scenery and horses.

 

She would never understand how a prince could be so dull and complacent.  She would also never understand why her stubborn child took so much after him.

 

She flicked her wrist and covered the ghastly picture of a bird over the fireplace with a tapestry. It was Regina’s chosen coat of arms, the mark of The Evil Queen.  It was a small tapestry, but it made her point well enough. Regina was not a nobody.

 

Cora pursed her lips and flicked her wrist again.  The wall, fireplace and mantle cracked, groaned and expanded. She enlarged it and watched the decorative blue tile fall away.  She replaced it with exquisite red marble. The new space allowed for two more tapestries, one on either side of Regina’s dark symbol.

 

She conjured a red banner with a gold heart and crown.  It was her own. The other was Henry’s-Xavier’s, his family’s coat of arms.  Regina was not a nobody. She had a pedigree, gilded with gold and infused with magic.  She was royal, whether she liked it or not. Cora tossed a fireball onto the stacked wood in the new and improved fireplace. The fire crackled to life, wild and hungry.  Cora made herself comfortable on one of the matched creme couches and waited. Regina would not keep her waiting for very long-she knew better.

 

Regina entered the study only a few minutes after she arrived home.  She didn’t bother to pause or even feign shock at her presence. “Mother.”  She looked around the room and took in all the changes. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”  Her tone was chilly and reserved. She sounded regal.

 

“Well I was starting to doubt that I would receive an invitation, Regina.”

 

Regina sat on the couch across from her.  Her posture was perfect and her face was calm and she had a polite smile on her lips.  She probably thought she was controlling herself well. She was wrong, of course. Cora could see her fingers tangled together, wringing  on her lap. The muscle in her cheek was ticking and her eyes were a storm of messy emotions. Regina could play-act all she wanted, but it would do her no good.  She could read her daughter like a book.

 

“I thought I’d made myself clear years ago, there will never be an invitation for you, Mother.  I don’t want you in my life.”

 

Twenty eight years had made her bold. It showed in her attitude and words. As the Evil Queen, she’d had a flair for the dramatic, and she clung to that even now.

 

“But you need me.  I am your mother, Regina.”  She smiled, “And a mother loves you no matter how long or how far apart they are from you.  When everyone else abandons you, I will still be here.” Regina would have nowhere else to turn, no one else to help her.  She would come back to her, because she craved love and acceptance. Regina loved her. More importantly, she needed her and the sooner she remembered that, the better.

 

“Now that you’re a mother, I would-”

 

“Don’t”  Regina interrupted her.  “you dare talk about my son.”

 

Cora held back a smirk.  That boy was Regina’s greatest weakness.  She would use that to her advantage, but not yet.  It was too soon.

 

“And don’t you dare”  Regina continued, her voice was shaking now.  It betrayed her emotions and highlighted her weaknesses. “Say one word about Esmeralda.”

 

Some things never changed.  Regina had always idolized that wretched barbarian.  That was one more reason to despise her. It was one thing to take a woman’s husband (they were easy to replace).  Taking their child was a different matter. She had killed people for less. She should have killed Esmeralda.

 

“Regina-”

 

Her daughter’s hands curled into fists, “You lied to me.  You told me it was her heart. You crushed it right in front of me. I was only a child.”  She blinked, “Do you even remember whose heart it actually was?”

 

No.  She did not remember.  That had been many years and many hearts ago.

 

“It was time for her to go.  You weren’t a baby anymore, you didn’t need a nursemaid.”  She paused for a beat, “I did it for you, everything I did was for-”

 

“No.”  Regina’s voice rose and snapped like a whip.  “You did it for yourself, Mother. You never cared about my happiness.”  Darkness, the madness that made her daughter in the well known and feared Evil Queen, flared up in Regina.  The vein in her forehead started to pound and her voice dropped to a low and dangerous tone.

 

Cora sighed, “You’re having a tantrum.  Again.”

 

Regina stood up and walked to the improved fireplace.  “This is why I hired that good-for-nothing pirate to kill you.”  She stared into the flames. “For all the good that did me.” She chuckled at herself, “Huntsmen and pirates.  The next time I need someone murdered I’ll do it myself.”

 

There.  There was the Queen she’d raised.  She was her mother’s daughter at heart.

 

“Do calm down,Darling.  That is all in the past.  This is a new time and place, your own little realm.  I’m here to help you, to help you make them remember you, to obey you, to kneel to you again.”  She came to her daughter’s side at the fire. “You’ll see.” She smoothed her hand over Regina’s hair, “They will all bow to you.  All the peasants, all the nobles and royals. Even those Charmings. They will remember who their true queen is.”

 

Regina turned away from her touch.  “And will that queen be you or me, Mother?”

 

Petulant and belligerent child.

 

“You, Regina.  You are-”

 

Regina stepped away.  “No. I’m not. I am not a Queen.  I’m not even a Mayor anymore. I am just Regina, Mother.  I’m not a title or an avenue to more power or glory. Can’t you let me be me?  Won’t I ever be enough for you?”

 

She was trembling now, letting her emotions control her. Love had made Regina soft, left her heart weak.

 

“Regina, Darling, you know I love you.  You are my whole world. You, my child, are my greatest acheivment.  I’ve spent twenty eight years thinking only of getting to you, of seeing you again.”  Which was technically true. She stepped closer to Regina, closed the gap between them and took her daughter’s face in her hands.  It was a tad narcissistic, but when she looked at Regina, she saw herself. It was in her cheekbones and brows. It was the shape of her eyes.  “We’ve been through so much, separation, misunderstandings, and even bloodshed, but I’m here now. We’re together again, you and me against the world, a family again.”

 

“Family.”

 

She could feel and hear her daughter whisper.  It was a single word, reverant like a prayer. It was a holy tenant to those who thought with their hearts and not their heads.  She ran her thumb across Regina’s cheek. “That’s right. I’m here now, and everything will be okay. Mother knows best.”

 

Regina tilted her head into her touch, and smiled.  There were tears welling in her eyes. She placed her hand onto of her own and pulled it away from her face gently.  “No.”

 

No?

 

“No.  This is my life and my journey.  I am trying to be a better person and you-”  She swallowed and Cora could see the cords in her neck working.  “And you are toxic, Mother. I don’t want you here, not around me and not around Henry.  Family isn’t blood, it’s love and you don’t love anyone, Mother. You don’t know how.”

 

How dare she?  Her hand rose to slap Regina, but she stayed it.  Esmeralda had filled her head with nonsense, and worse, Emma Swan had filled her heart with hope.

 

“They don’t love you, Regina.  Not the way that I do. They can’t.  This town, these people, even Esmeralda and that wretched blonde, they don’t see you.  They see the Evil Queen. They will turn on you at the first sign of trouble. They will run away.  They will leave you alone. Even your son. Mark my words, they will all leave you. Only I stay, Regina.”

 

“Go!”  The fire crackled high and wild, fueled by Regina’s uncontrolled emotions.  She’d thrown tantrums before and Cora hadn’t cared for them then either. Regina was only hurting herself.

 

“Regina Xaviera!”

 

“Go!”  Violence and madness flashed in her daughter's eyes.  It was the shadow of the Queen who had ruled with an iron and bloody fist.  The fire was scorching the new marble fireplace and mantle. It had started to lick at the black tapestry that hung above it.  “Go!”

 

“I will be back, Regina, when you need me.”

 

It was a promise and a prediction.  She took one last look at the girl she had borne and raised then she teleported away  in a swirl of smoke.

 

* * *

 

Her mother couldn’t leave anything untouched.  She had to put her signature on everything, which included Regina. She had invaded her study.  It was her quiet place, where she could read, relax and think of her father. This was where she and Henry read and did homework together. It was where she had brought Emma the first night they’d met.  So of course Cora had chosen to invade this room. She had invaded her tidy life. Then in typical Cora fashion she had started damaging things to her liking. Regina hated it, hated her.

 

The red marble was hideous.  She was glad that it was being destroyed.   The enchanted fire was scorching the stone and it was cracking in the heat. The tapestries that hung over the now ruined mantle was were smoldering. Hot embers ate away at them, destroying the pieces of her past.  The one in the middle was the banner of the Evil Queen. Regina reached up and tore at it. It ripped in half and she stumbled backwards, unbalanced on her heels. She threw the ragged half of the banner in the fire.  It was only reminded her of days she’d spent a long time trying to forget. She ripped at the other ragged half on the wall. She wanted it off of the wall and out of her house. She wanted it gone and destroyed. She didn’t want that thing, that reminder, anywhere around her.

 

She wanted it gone.  All the pain. All the memories. All the blood on her hands. How did you forget the taste of blood on your tongue or the feeling of a heart turning to dust in your fist?  You didn’t. The Evil Queen was always there, bubbling under the surface of her skin. Regina had long ago resigned herself to the fact that she would always be there. Her dark impulses would never  go away. They were written in her DNA. It wasn’t even a nature versus nurture in her case, it was both. Add her abusive mother and husband and a dark mentor and she was a Lifetime Movie of the Week.  If Lifetime did horror movies.

 

She couldn’t regret it, though.  The curse had given her Henry, Emma and Storybrooke. Even if she cursed everyone and burnt every piece of evidence, The Evil Queen would never leave her.  Regina’s curse was to remember.

 

Another tapestry, her Mother’s personal coat of arms, mocked her.  The golden heart and crown against the blood red background made a chill go up her spine. She hated it.  She always had. It made her feel guilty. She had pushed her mother through the mirror to escape her, and to punish her.  Instead, her Mother had become a queen, The Queen of Hearts, the most feared woman in Wonderland. Regina knew that her mother’s bloody reign was partially her fault.  The same way she knew that Prince Phillip’s death could be laid at her feet. Many deaths, countless bodies, lay at her feet.

 

She stared at the tapestry and the red assaulted her vision.  Blood roared in her head. She screamed. The sound tore out of her.  It was a hoarse and wild sound made her throat burn. She tore her Cora’s banner from the wall. She removed Cora’s toxic touch from her life.  She clenched her fists around the tapestry and she smiled. The destruction was good, powerful. She threw the offencive cloth into the roaring fire. It was a cleansing fire and it crackled high and hot like her anger.  Like her pain.

 

It wasn’t enough.  Regina tore through the room.  She tore art off the walls. She ripped fabric, broke wood and glass, and scorched the walls with magic.  She lashed out and when she destroyed, she didn’t hurt.

 

The violence numbed her pain, but it didn’t dim the hatred in her.  It burned high and hot, like the fire in the hearth. She hated, oh she hated.  She hated her mother. She hated Snow. She hated Storybrooke. She hated Rumple.  She hated herself. Hate. Hate. Hate.

 

Regina destroyed her study.  She only stopped moving when she’d come full circle and was back in front of the fireplace.  There was one last tapestry. She reached for it,but she hesitated. Her fingernails snagged in the silk threads and she took a deep breath.  The banner was her father’s, his family’s. Her father had displayed a banner like it in his study when she’d been a child.

 

Her father had been one of several sons and had always known he would never be king.  He had loved his kingdom and people, though. The memories were hazy now, but once her grandfather had passed, her uncle had became king. He would come and her mother would give him gold, but something had changed, and they left.  They moved to the northernmost fiefdom. It was small, modest, and bordered the next kingdom. As a child she had not understood why. Now she understood. Her father had been disgraced and dismissed from court. His own brother had sent him away.  She suspected Cora had something to do with it.

 

Her mother had thought it was a good thing. It had moved them closer to the noble households and royal courts of the Enchanted Forest. Closer to where Cora wanted to be.  Closer to where Cora wanted to rule. Daddy had hated it, but he had never stopped loving his kingdom. He had never stopped being a prince to his people, disgraced or not. He’d traded and bred horses, and after she married Leopold, he had been an ambassador of sorts.

 

She smiled a little.  He and Esmeralda had taught her about the Southern language and traditions in secret. Even when they’d lived at the Southern Court it had always been a secret. Cora had wanted her to fit in with the Enchanted Forest royals.  Cora had trained her and Leopold had reinforced that training. She had become a beautiful and untouchable queen for them.

 

Regina had then become the great and terrible evil queen for herself. For her vengeance. For her magic.  For her power. For her curse. She had been born into a beautiful and vibrant kingdom but had never experienced it. So she had made her own kingdom out of terror and death.  

 

She let herself relax for a moment, and let her forehead rest against the cool silk banner.  She would leave it. Daddy would like it. It was a little piece of his homeland. She was calmer now.  The red that had flooded her vision had started to recede. She let her magic flow from her fingers and into the banner.  She had ruined it. The banner was soot-covered and scorched. Her magic repaired it to a brilliant green and luminous gold.  She moved it to the center over the fireplace, the place of honor. The fire flickered, wavered and shrank back into its rightful grate.

 

“Oh.”

 

She looked around.  The room was an absolute wreck.  She had given herself over to temper and darkness.  She had lost control. Lost control in a way that she hadn’t since she’d cast the curse.

 

Her knees were weak. Regina stumbled backwards and sat on the couch that she hadn’t turned on it’s back and set on fire.  It wasn’t just her knees, she was shaking. She buried her face in her hands and started to sob. Her emotions were a wreck too.  Her magic was out of control and she felt lost.

 

She couldn’t redeem herself.  The very first time she was by herself, the very first time something was hard, she had snapped.  Everyone still saw The Evil Queen because she was The Evil Queen. The destruction around her was all the evidence anyone needed.

 

The first time she didn’t have someone to ground her, she had turned back into a soulless monster.  She would never-ever be able to escape her past.

 

Emma had seen it.  Even before she had believed in the curse, or fairy tales or good and evil.  “You have no soul. How in the hell did you get like this?”

 

Tears. Her anger, hurt and despair slid down her cheeks.  She curled up on the couch, arms around her knees, and cried.

 

How indeed.


	31. Chapter XXX: Knows Best

Chapter XXX

“Knows Best”

  
Emma Swan was exhausted. It had been a long day from beginning to end.  She had sheriffed her ass off and hadn’t done too bad at it. Well, she hadn’t blown up the town or beamed up to another dimension.  So she’d done okay. There was so much to do, though, and she wasn’t exactly sure how to do it all. She was kind of winging it. Which summed up her whole life pretty well. Being a sheriff: winging it. Being a mother:  winging it. Being a daughter: winging it. Being an almost-girlfriend: definitely winging it.

 

She was finally back at Mary Margar-Snow’s loft. She was going to take a minute and relax.  Relax with Snow, David and her kid. They could watch crappy tv and she could not-think for a minute. They could all use a nice quiet night in.  It was six-thirty and if she were in bed and asleep by eight, that would be fine with her. She unhooked her heavy belt and looked around for somewhere to put it. Henry was sitting at the kitchen island with her laptop.  She couldn’t leave her gun laying around anywhere. She buckled the belt back onto her hips. She pulled her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. So tired.

 

“Hey Kid.”  She ruffled his hair. “I’m going to need my laptop later.  I have to make an Amazon order.” They needed a gun safe in the house,and one for Regina’s place too. She and David couldn’t be too safe with guns when there was an impressionable kid around.  She grinned at said kid, “You can pick out something too if you like. A graphic novel or something.” She thought over her bank account, “Or a gameboy.”

 

Henry screwed his face up, “You mean a Nintendo DS?”  He chuckled, “No one calls them gameboys anymore.”

 

She remembered when a gameboy was the most amazing thing a kid could have.  Now you could play Tetris and Mario on a cheap cell phone. She sighed. That was another thing she had to fix.  She’d lost her phone somewhere during her drunken wander through town. It was somewhere between the bar and Regina’s but she didn’t know where.  She would rather fight an ogre then call Verizon customer service, but she was going to have to eventually.

 

“Keep the smart mouth up”  Emma banished adult-like thoughts from her brain. “And you won’t get one, no matter what they call it.”  She ruffled his hair again and he gave her a big grin. A grin she now recognized as a Regina Mills expression.  She paused, “I’ll have to ask your Mom if it’s okay.” Because the last thing she needed was to do something else to make Regina hate her.

She put her glasses on the counter by her computer and leaned on it. She could feel her vertebrae popping as she stretched. Between the gameboy remark and the popping in her back, she felt ancient, like the Crypt Keeper.  

 

“Why?”  Mary Marg-Snow breezed into the room.  She had three garment bags over her arm.  “You’re Henry’s mother. You don’t have to check anything with her.”  

 

Emma wanted to groan but bit it back.  She figured that Snow would be a little pissy with her about the article, but her tone was down right frigid.  The woman looked like Mary Margaret, teacher and sort of frumpy roommate. She sounded like a stranger, though.  Emma sighed. She couldn’t handle another royal episode today.

 

“I’m so glad you’re here.  We only have a few days to get your dress taken care of.”

 

Emma stared at her for a minute, completely confused. Were they fighting?  Wait, a dress? She had doodled out an Amazon shopping list at work and there had been several things on it, but no dress. Had she missed something?  She usually kept her calendar reminders and alerts on her phone.

 

Oh fuck, was there supposed to be some crazy coronation to crown her princess of fairytale land? The only thing she’d ever seen that even came close to that was a couple of scenes from “Coming to America”. She was pretty sure that wasn’t accurate.  Sometimes Eddie Murphy was funny but never accurate.

 

“What dress and for what?”  She tugged the collar of her black polo.  “Because whatever its for, I’m going to be on duty that night.”  She grinned and waited for Snow to laugh.

 

* * *

 

When Snow White had been pregnant she’d dreamed of the life her daughter would lead.  She had wanted Emma to have an idyllic childhood, like hers. She’d dreamed of tea parties and cotillions, of taking her all over the kingdom so she could see everything.  The fairies, the dwarves, the soaring mountains and the fertile farmlands, the sea. Her Little Princess, born of True Love. Only Regina had destroyed that dream. The Evil Queen and her curse had robbed her of the chance to raise Emma.  First her father, then her daughter. Regina was hell bent on destroying her happiness. She’d had plans and had wanted to give Emma a life of kindness, happiness and greatness. She’d wanted to give her everything her own parents had given her and more.  She wanted Emma to know where she was from and who she was meant to be. Their time together had finally come.

 

Only Emma didn’t seem to see it that way.  She was still running. She was out at all hours and stirring up trouble.  She was acting like everything was the same, even though it was definitely not.  Storybrooke was not a simple town in Maine and they were not normal people. They were rulers, leaders and were extraordinary.  Emma would see that, she would understand it. She couldn’t do whatever she wanted and she definitely couldn’t run to The Evil Queen for help.

 

Emma was focusing on all the wrong things.  She was distancing herself from them when they should be coming together.  Emma was a princess, she had royal blood flowing through her veins. She was the descendant of great kings and queens.  Emma couldn’t keep running from her destiny.

 

“The Ball, Emma.”  If she ever came home, she would know these things.  “We have to present you at The Ball.” She walked to the couch and laid the three dress bags down across the back of it.  “Luckily, my seamstress has a shop right here in town and was happy to work us in.”

 

Emma stared at her, eyes wide and jaw open.  “Ball?” Her confused face was almost identical to David's.

 

Henry looked up from whatever it was he was doing on the computer. Had she ever got her credit card information changed from the last time he’d gotten creative on a computer?  She should check into that. “The Family Dance at school. Grandma decided it should be a ball this year, like in my Book.”

 

Emma still didn’t seem to get it.  “Family Dance?”

 

Henry turned to look at her, “Yeah, like a Father-Daughter or Mother-Son Dance. It’s like the Elementary School Prom.  Only since not everyone has a father or a mother or both or whatever, it is a Family Dance. Parents and grandparents and whatever.  There’s a DJ and punch and cake and it’s kind of fun.”

 

It had been fun, but this year would be better.  This year all the families that the curse had ripped apart were back together.  The Savior, her Emma, had broken the curse and reunited everyone. She’d saved them all.

 

“Yes. Only this year, we are going to have a traditional ball.  Our youngsters will get to see and remember how things are supposed to be.”  She’d loved Balls as a child. She had bright happy memories of dancing with her father.  The colors, the music, the fun. Those were good times. “You’ll love it, Emma.” The women will all be wearing gowns. The men will be wearing their finest, some of the knights will even be wearing their colors. Granny will be making delicacies and I’ve asked around and found some musicians.”  She smoothed her hands over the garment bags, along the sealed zippers. Oh there will be dances and all the titled nobles will be able to display-”

 

“You’ve”  Emma interrupted her, “gotta be kidding me.  You shanghaied a children’s dance to have an honest-to-Disney Ball?”  Emma boosted herself up to sit on the low side of the island counter beside the sink.  “Isn’t this dance for Henry and his classmates?”

 

“We’ve been helping!”  Henry jumped back in to the conversation. “We’ve all been researching our families and figuring out what coat of arms would be, or who we were loyal to.  Like which kingdom and lord and king and stuff.” He grinned, “There are a lot of kids in my class that are loyal to us.”

 

Snow unzipped the first of three bags.  “That’s right, Henry.” Her grandson was a smart boy, a good student, and a prince. Her father would be proud of him. “Ours is a very large and powerful kingdom and my father was a very beloved king.”  She turned to Emma, “Our family wears white, of course.” She held up the first dress she’d picked. It was a gorgeous white gown with fitted sleeves and a jeweled bodice. It was very much like one of her favorite dresses.  “What do you think?”

 

She had dreamed of the day that she would present Emma at her first ball.  It was a few years later than usual, but she hadn’t lost her chance. She might cry.

 

“Uuuuh”  

 

Emma tilted her head to the side, and David shined through again.  She took after her father so much. Snoe was a little biased though. When she looked at Emma, all she could see was herself.  It was her chin and her eyes. It was the shape of her face and the way her brows arched. It was the shape of her fingers and the the way she scrunched her nose when something smelled foul.  Emma was her baby girl and she was finally going to be a princess.

 

“It’s nice?  And fluffy. Really fluffy.  Like a wedding dress, kinda?”  She straightened up her head, “The uh middle part is cool.”

 

Snow didn’t let Emma’s lack of enthusiasm deter her.  “Well the dress doesn’t have to be white. I thought you would look lovely in blue.”  She unzipped the second bag. “This is a little sleeker but-” Emma was staring at the dress and hadn’t said anything.  The look on her face was somewhere between surprise and disgust. “Or this one” She unzipped the third bag, and pulled the gown out.

 

As soon as Emma saw the bottom half, beautiful layers of pink silk, she jumped off the counter.  “Mary Margr-” Emma huffed, “I mean Snow-”

 

A little stab of sadness hit her.  Why couldn’t she mean Mom?

 

“This is nice, I mean super nice of you, but I don’t think any of those dresses are going to work for me.”

 

Snow stuffed the pink gown back into the bag.  “Well, Helen has closed up shop already, but tomorrow we can drop by and take a look around.  I know it’s not a leather mini dress “but wearing a gown makes you feel pampered, like a princess.”

 

Emma crossed her arms across her chest, “Yeah, but I’m not a princess. I should wear something less fluffy, like my dress uniform."

 

“Emma”  Snow wished she could get through to her daughter, to make her see all the possibilities ahead for them.  She wanted to be able to give all her happiness and hope to her daughter. She wanted Emma to smile. “You are a princess, my princess, and I promise that-”

 

Emma stiffened. “Yeah, but you're not putting me in a dress and parading me around.  I'm not some wierdo-kid in a baby beauty pageant contestant. That isn’t who I am. This is me.”  She turned around in a circle to show her Sheriff’s uniform, complete with boots and gun. “I’m a total royal screw up.  Here’s the thing, those pictures in the paper? Yeah, that was a pretty good summary of my early twenties. I don’t even remember most of 2002. I grew up since then, pulled myself up by my ye-olde bootstraps. I got my shit together.  By the time Henry found me I was making good money, paying my rent on time and planning on taking a cruise to Puerto Rico. Now I’m a princess?” She threw her hands up in the air, “yeah right.”

 

Why was she being so stubborn?  Snow had waited twenty-eight years to be Emma’s mother.  Emma had waited for years to find out who her parents were.  Everything had finally fallen into place but it was like Emma didn’t even want to be family.  

 

“I’m your mother, Emma, and I only want the best for you.  Everything I ever did was for you, to give you the best chance.  There have been some mistakes along the way, but I know Leah and Stephen will accept your apology.”

 

Emma furrowed her brow, like she wanted to say something, but didn’t.  Snow crossed the room and grabbed her hands. “We’ve been through so much: separation, curses, confusion, and even bloodshed.  I’m here for you now, though. We’re together again. We have our family again. We are so close to happily ever after, we just have to reach out and take it.”

 

“Family.”

 

Emma mumbled the word, but wasn’t making eye contact.  

 

“Yes. Me, David, you and Henry, a family and we’re-”

 

Emma pulled away her hands.  “No.”

 

No?

 

“It’s like you’re not listening to me at all.  I don’t want to wear a ballgown and curtsy and dance.  I’m not the princess in your head. I’m an actual person and I am not apologizing for anything.  Rory was fine. She had fun for the first time in her life. We were with her the whole damn night. Some small-town paparazzi took some pictures and everybody is acting like it was a crime!"

 

Anger bubbled in her stomach.  “It isn’t okay, Emma. You embarrassed our family.  You embarrassed our allie’s family. Leah is my supervisor, I could have lost my job.  This is the sort of thing that could start a war. We have to show the people that you are a good leader, a just and worthy princess. You are the savior-you can’t run around and-”

 

“Snow.”  Emma’s face hardened and her brows drew together.  “I don’t put on shows for people. That shit never worked for the orphan-shopping parents and fosters when I was growing up and it won’t work now. I’m an adult and I don’t need someone mothering me to death.  If you had wanted to do that, you shouldn’t have stuck baby-me in a magical tree.”

 

It was a verbal slap, a punch. Emma could have run her through with a sword and it would have hurt less.  “The Evil Queen-”

 

“Don’t!”  Emma screamed “call her that!  Our kid is right there.”

 

Henry was watching them argue.  His eyes were wide and darting between the two of them.  They shouldn’t be arguing in front of him. “and I” Emma showed no sign of stopping, “am tired of people talking shit about Regina.  No more-not in front of me and not in front of Henry.”

 

Snow couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She and Emma were family, and before that friends.  Where was all this anger coming from? Someone had been planting ideas in Emma’s head.

 

“What has that woman done to you?  She’s filled your head with-” She didn’t even known.  Magic? Lies? Darkness? “I don’t even know. I can’t believe this!  Were you over there again last night?” She couldn’t even wrap her head around the idea.  “Did she hurt you?”

 

Emma rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, she’s a total sadist.  She tucked me in, fed me breakfast and even made sure I had a uniform for work.  She didn’t judge me, and she sure as hell isn’t demanding that I apologize for anything.  It was fine, normal even. She made me coffee and a BLT. Esmeralda even smiled at me while she drank tea.  It was terrifying. Jesus H Christ, Mary Margaret, stop being ridiculous.”

 

Snow would have never-ever talked to her parents like that.  She couldn’t imagine why Emma was acting out. Regina had to have done something.  That was the only explanation. Her curse had failed so now she was trying to use Emma for revenge.  Snow didn’t know what her plot was, but she wasn’t going to let her succeed.

 

“Emma Ruth Swan!”

 

Emma jerked her head, shocked.  A little hurt went through her heart.  Emma hadn’t even known her own middle name.  

 

“That is enough of this.  You are-are-throwing a tantrum like a child.  You say you’re an adult, then act like it. You will wear a gown and go to this ball.  You will apologize for trying to corrupt Aurora. You will stop this nonsense. I know you don’t like it, but it is for the best. I’m-”

 

She took a breath and tried to calm down. It was hard, everything had come back to her when the curse broke.  All her memories, all her pain, all the resentment and anger. She was still fighting against Regina and the stakes were still the same.  She was fighting the Evil Queen to protect her family, to protect Emma.

 

She took another deep breath, “-your mother and I know best.  You and Henry will stay away from Regina Mills. She is a monster and the reason that our family was-”

 

Emma balled her hands into fists.  “I won’t. I won’t be someone I’m not, and trust me, I am not this princess you want me to be.  I never was. I never will be.”

 

She kept getting louder and the angrier she got, the faster her words came.  Her voice flattened out and her Rs disappeared. A Boston accent, one that Emma usually didn’t have, warped her voice and made it sound harsh and coarse.

 

“I am doing my best here.  I mean here’s the thing, Snow.  I prayed every day for parents. Lit candles, asked the saints and did everything the nuns said to do-and nothing ever happened.  I stopped praying and looking for my parents when I was fourteen years old. I am not your little girl.” The accent was heavy now and Emma was holding herself so stiff that she was shaking.  “But I am one of Henry’s mothers. I may not know best, but what I say goes. I’m starting to think that a loft surrounded by fairytale characters isn’t where he belongs. Maybe it isn’t where I belong either.”  She scowled and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder, “And as far as Regina goes? She’s Henry’s mother and my-” She paused and licked her lips, “she’s my friend. Neither of us is going to abandon her. Don’t make me choose between Regina and you, Snow.  You won’t like the outcome.”

 

Snow felt her knees go weak.  The breath flew out of her lungs and she wanted to scream, but couldn’t.  

 

“Fuck.”  Emma pushed her hands through her hair.  “I’m not cut out for this fairytale bullshit.  I should have gone back to Boston and none of this shit would have happened.  

 

“You can’t mean that.”  Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears. Her stomach was twirling and she could taste pennies.  Snow was having problems standing and Emma was talking about leaving? No, she wasn’t talking about leaving.  That was not possible.

 

“The hell I don’t!  I’m not what you want and apparently you would rather have me play pretend-princess then be happy.  You’ve never cared about my happiness-just your stupid delusions. Newsflash, you signed away your parental rights when you shoved me into a tree. You didn’t know what would happen to me, where I would end up, or even if I would make it through alive. When I signed those papers, I knew my son was getting his best shot.  Your decision was all about you, and mine was all about him!”

 

Emma looked over at Henry for the first time since she’d started to scream, “and damn if I wasn’t right.  He got Regina.” Her voice dropped back to a normal volume and softened a bit. “and she is everything that I ever dreamed of for my kid. She was-is a good mother.  She is trying so hard to be a better person and all you people do is shit on her.” She whipped her head back so hard that her blonde ponytail hit her face. “Just like every know-it-all foster mom shit on me.  They never got the perfect princess they wanted either. You? You got exactly what you wanted. You got your savior.”

 

Emma was breathing hard, so angry that she was gnashing her teeth and pacing.   “But me? I got nothing-just a first name and a destiny I never wanted.”

 

Snow couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think.  “Emma-” She was trying but words were catching in her throat “I-I”

 

“Yeah, I get it.  I’m not what you imagined.  I get it.” She blew out a breath.  “I get it. I’m out of here.” She turned on her heel and headed back towards the door.

 

“Emma!”

 

She slammed the door behind her so hard that the photo frames rattled.  

 

Snow looked over at Henry.  He was crying.

 

“Henry-”

 

He jumped off of the stool and ran up the stairs.

 

Snow was all alone.  All alone again. How had everything gone so wrong so fast?

 

* * *

 

 

She was a runner.  When things got tough, she got going.  Emma Swan never stayed anywhere too long.  Why bother? She would never find Tallahassee.  She'd been to the actual city, but it wasn't that great.  Tallahassee was an idea and it was bullshit. It was a lie, like everything else Neal had told her.  The only good thing that had ever come out of that dick was Henry.

 

God.  Henry.  She had never wanted him to see that side of her.  She’d seen more than her fair share of screaming women and domestic disputes and now so had Henry. Her kid had got to hear about all her messed up problems at eardrum blowing volumes.  Great.

 

She walked, jogged, past the Bug.  She had no idea where she was going.  She had to keep moving, to keep going until she couldn’t go anymore.  The tingles were back in her legs again. She had told Mary Margaret the truth.  She was never going to be her perfect princess. She was never going to be anything that people wanted her to be.  She couldn’t even get being Henry’s mom right. She had run to Regina the first time things had been hard. What kind of mom couldn’t handle a freaking science project?  What kind of mom had screaming-matches in front of her kid? What kind of mom was she? She wasn’t Regina Mills, that was for damn sure.

 

Regina.

 

Regina, who had raised their son.  Regina, who had saved their asses on that project.  Regina, who had sucked up an actual killer curse for her.  Regina, who had healed her. Regina, who had kissed her. Regina.

 

Emma kept walking, almost jogging at this point.  Her thoughts were jumbled and wild and she wanted to scream again.  She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. It was all too much. She was a lopsided Jenga tower and Mary Margaret  had yanked the last steady piece out from under her. She was going to fall everywhere. She screwed everything up, even the good stuff in her life.  In one single day she’d ruined her relationship with her mom, her son and her-her-her Regina.

 

Damn it.

 

She kept going until she reached the convenience store, S-Mart.  Because it was Storybrooke and 7-11s didn’t make the curse-cut. Not that it was a great loss, but Emma did sort of miss the familiarity of the chain store. Late stage capitalism hadn’t touched Storybrooke.  It was all Mayberry Maine Street Mom and Pop stores. Hell, S-Mart even carried locally-made jerky and left-over nun candles.

 

There were promotional cardboard cutouts from the 80s along the walls. The Ghostbusters, David Bowie and Princess Leia were all staring at her and judging her.  It was sort of a creepy-time warp store. She paused half-way through the store. There was a rickety rack of knock-off Ray Bans. She grabbed a pair of aviator style sunglasses that looked like they’d come right out of an episode of CHIPS.  She put them on and caught her reflection in one of the soda coolers. She didn’t look too bad. While she was looking, she double checked to see if they had any Crystal Pepsi in stock. They didn’t, but they did have cold beer and a clerk, Bashful, didn’t ask any questions.  He didn’t even card her, which was the only good part about being in a town where everybody knew your name.

 

She took her beer, wore the sunglasses out and booked it before the dwarf called her mom to tattle on her.  Emma wanted to say something, but didn't. In-uniform sheriffs were probably not supposed to say the phrase snitches get stitches.  She walked back out onto the street and kept walking. Away from the loft, away from the station, away from Mifflin Street.

 

She remembered when she and Henry would sit at his castle together.  Back when she was a stranger and he was a confused little boy with a book.  Those had been the days. What had Henry called it? Operation Cobra. Things had been a lot simpler back then. She’d spent her time talking to Henry with oversized walkie talkies. She'd spent hours thinking of ways to piss off his gorgeous mother too.  Back when castles were playgrounds and not real places. Real castles with real rooms for baby princesses.

 

Princesses got castles and happily ever afters.

 

She wasn’t a princess.  Emma kept walking. She didn’t know where she was going, maybe all the way to the town line.  Maybe further. She had pins and needles in her legs. Her heart ached. She was not ready to deal with any of the hot mess that was her life.

 

Some Savior she was.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the first and most epic SwanQueen stories I started. It is a true work of passion. It contains an OC, Esmeralda, whom I have come to dearly love. This story is also on FFN.


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